J.R. Pearse Nelson's Blog, page 7

Crestfallen (Water Rites, #2) Is Available Now!

You can now find the second Water Rites book at your favorite retailer! Below the description you can find links to sample the first three chapters on this site. Happy reading!

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

Sample the first three chapters of Crestfallen here! Or if you’re new to the series, sample the beginning of the first book, Water Rites — or better yet, sign up for my newsletter and you can read the entirety of Water Rites book one here on my website!

Find the Water Rites series at your favorite retailer.

Read descriptions and link to the first three chapters here.

Water Rites 

Amazon

Nook

iBooks

Kobo

Crestfallen

Amazon

Nook

iBooks

Kobo

Castle and Crown (**Coming winter 2016**)

Own Your Writing Career: Don’t Be Distracted by the Noise

I don’t need to tell you that the book publishing marketplace is all sorts of wacky at this moment in history. It seems a new change is revealed every other day or so. When your focus is on creative work, it can really throw you for a loop to have a distribution method or a venue change appreciably while you’re holed up writing your next book. 

But let me tell you, these changes aren’t going to stop. And all of those seconds you spend worrying about the changes can really add up over time. Instead of letting these marketplace adjustments and changes distract you from your main mission – creating more of what only YOU can create – DON’T give the market that much power over your mental real estate. Just DON’T. 

Allowing these distractions to enter your head space, especially when you’re supposed to be focused on your work, can be a major source of procrastination and wasted hours. As I’ve said repeatedly in this series, there are things that you can control, and there are aspects of this business that you absolutely cannot control. Keep your focus on the pieces that you can control.

I’m going to give a couple of examples of recent “upsets” in the book publishing marketplace, just in case you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about. 

Amazon Changes Kindle Unlimited Payouts – AGAIN

Amazon has been pushing ahead in new publishing avenues and ideas for many years now. There are a variety of opinions about Amazon, about the exclusivity requirement of KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited programs, and about how Amazon values authors as partners. Opinions run the gamut from fierce denouncement to complete adoration. Simply put, Amazon is a gorilla thumping about among a troop of chimpanzees. When they make a move, it is noticed, far and wide.

This week’s major change to Kindle Unlimited is blowing up my social media with all sorts of woe from authors. Up through July, authors were paid portions of the fund set aside for Kindle Unlimited based on the number of times their books were borrowed, out of the total number of borrows. As of July 1, Amazon changed this formula so that authors will be paid based on the number of pages of their books read by borrowers, out of the total pages read in the month. This change will help some Amazon-exclusive authors, and will harm others.

Did you note that I didn’t give my opinion about all of this Amazon stuff? Well….it’s complicated. I chalk all of the Amazon debate up to, “Choices, choices.” It might be right for an author for reasons of discoverability and building an audience….and for others it might never be a way they want to go.

We should continue to expect Amazon to push the boundaries of what’s come before. They will continue to look for ways to maximize their profits, and at the times that it intersects with an author’s goals, they can be a great partner…but don’t expect the same model a year from now.  

What can I control about this situation? Well…I could choose not to have my books exclusive with Amazon. In the long-run, building an audience at all available retailers is a smarter bet, anyway. If the math is no longer in your favor….get the heck out of there.

Scribd Delists Many Romance (and Other Genre) Books

What the heck are they thinking? I believe what we’re actually seeing is the beginning of the end for Scribd, as they will anger many readers by reducing what they carry. They want your subscription dollars, but some readers just read too much for their business model – namely, romance readers. And these avid readers are exactly the sort who benefit from a subscription service. So…Scribd wants to sell subscriptions, but they don’t want you to read too much, or they lose money. Duh. This is what I thought about their business model to begin with, and it seems they, too, have found that they can’t make enough money to survive with their current business model. 

Here’s what happened: earlier this week, Scribd began delisting many books distributed through Smashwords and Draft2Digital (two major sources of indie-published books). I can verify through conversations with friends that both of these distribution channels have been affected by this change by Scribd. Specifically, Scribd is reducing the amount of romance that they stock. However, they’re also delisting other books, seemingly randomly.

Scribd gave authors ZERO notice. They just stripped the books from their site. If you look up my author name on the Scribd site (as of Wednesday afternoon), you can still see a spot for my paranormal romance series, Children of the Sidhe, distributed through Smashwords. But if you click on it, there are no books in that series available on Scribd. And they’ve also removed the FIRST book in my Foulweather Twins series, though the second book is still there. (And that’s just WEIRD.)

What can I control about this situation? I can choose not to distribute my books to Scribd anymore, or I can live with their choice to only list some of my books. I will probably do the former, since they left my listing looking quite odd and unrepresentative of my work, and because this change makes me believe they’re on their way to irrelevance anyway.

Don’t Be Distracted by the Noise

….I can tell you about both of these changes in the marketplace because I keep up on changes on the business side. That’s important. You should know about your book distribution partners, if you are in fact publishing…but these changes shouldn’t keep you up at night, or sap your energy to get fresh words on the page and new books released.

There will always be a hum of distracting news going on. In publishing we’ve seen a period of tremendous change – and it’s continued for YEARS now. It is likely to slow over these next few years as we reach something of a “new normal” after the ebook revolution and all the ways it has changed how readers find books.

Keep your focus on your own work. In five years, when the publishing landscape is different from what it is today, you’ll have that much more work out, and you can keep on experimenting with getting that work into readers’ hands.

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: Don’t Be Distracted by the Noise.” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Own Your Writing Career: Success, Oh Terrible Success

That was a fun title to write. Very dramatic. I can’t sustain that sort of drama for long, so I guess you get lucky there.

In my last post, I wrote about the pressures we all face in moving our writing and our businesses forward. The pressures of huge numbers of choices to wade through, the many interdependent decisions an independent writer or artist has to make, and the pressure to try new opportunities and to be everywhere at once.

When we’re talking about perceived pressure for an artist or a writer, we have to talk about success, definitions of success, and fear of success.

The whole idea of success can be a land-mine for creatives. In some ways, creative types are fearless…it takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there as you have to do as an artist. It takes a lot of courage to put any attempt at art into a physical medium. On the other hand, many creative types are also self-critical to a hyper degree. That’s what pushes us to be better at our chosen form of expression, but it’s not particularly helpful when it comes to living an emotionally and mentally healthy and satisfying life.

I’m a firm believer that we can do both. We can be emotionally and mentally healthy, with full, happy lives, and continue to grow as artists. First we have to expose the tapes we’re listening to in our own minds for the BS they are, and write new scripts that are more supportive of a full life, not one spent pining over our art.

So…on to defining success. It is a word that operates on multiple levels.

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, in the order presented on their website:

the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame
the correct or desired result of an attempt
someone or something that is successful: a person or thing that succeeds

Isn’t that order a perfect killer?

The first part to focus on, of course, is the second definition. The correct or desired result of an attempt. This is the aspect of success that is in your control.

Your decisions every day affect your achievement of the correct or desired result of an attempt. Make a different decision tomorrow — work harder — and this form of success is closer at hand. For many of us, this aspect of success has been achieved. I, for instance, have written and published many books. I have developed my storytelling craft, and I continue to learn — love to learn — about how to tell stories. I have succeeded and am succeeding regularly; my attempts at novels, novellas, short stories, story arcs over series, etc, are finished regularly and have the desired result of entertaining the readers who choose to pick up my work.

Now, you could argue with me that at a broader level, whether or not your attempts (for instance, in publishing a novel) have the correct or desired result (for instance, readers discovering and devouring your work), is not in your control. There are too many factors that affect book discovery and reader habits, and your book finding its audience is not in your control. This points out, once again, that BIG OLD WALL between the creative side of this work, and the public, discoverability, BUSINESS side of the work.

But if you’re going to have a creative career, the first step is reaching the desired result of attempts at your art.

That’s a brilliant turn, isn’t it? The thing that will most benefit you in the long-run development of a career is spending time at the art that you love, the passion that drove you to be here, considering an artistic career, in the first place.

Back to the definition of success…Can you control the first part of the definition above? The fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame.

No.

You do not control becoming wealthy, famous, or respected for your art. I think we can all agree on that.

Yes, the harder you work, the better placed you’ll be if luck should come calling. And the more of that second type of success (explored above) throughout your career. But you still may never become wealthy, famous, or respected.

Many artists don’t even want that sort of success. However, culturally, it seems to be assumed that we do.

And so we get into some of the fears surrounding success, and we’ll return to the third definition from Merriam-Webster in a few.

Fear of criticism

To be read is to be critiqued. To be read widely is to be critiqued widely, and harshly. This is likely the first ‘fear of success’ you’ll encounter on the path to a writing or artistic career. Conquering it takes getting over your pride, acknowledging your imperfections while not allowing them to stop you, and simply climbing over the wall (as often as necessary) and going on with your work.

Fear of losing oneself

Obscurity is oddly comforting to many an artist (myself included). Especially in the early years when the expression of your art is changing and progressing so rapidly…any sort of success can be frightening, because it turns your attention from the inward view you need to grow as an artist, to the outward, world-focused view. It’s a huge distraction, and being watched closely doesn’t help one experiment and play in the way you must to grow as an artist. If one of your first few books is a big success…how do you follow that? It’s a lot of pressure!

Fear of expanding obligations

This is one you won’t ever think about until you have a bunch of books out, and it’s taking work just to maintain your backlist. You have to split your precious writing time now with business chores and marketing. Even if your chosen forms of marketing are fun, which is what I hope you’ll choose for yourself, it is still time you can’t spend with your first love, your writing. What if your books start selling, and people suddenly want things from you? They want to talk about your work, or have you involved with events. Agh! How will you ever make the time to satisfy the social obligations that come with SUCCESS OH TERRIBLE SUCCESS?? (See, we got back to that, eventually. )

You might not feel this way at all. Maybe it’s just me.

Once again, all of these worries are outside of your control, because they’re linked to that first definition of success. The fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame.

The best thing you can do for your sanity and well-being is DON’T THINK ABOUT THIS STUFF. It’s a cross-that-bridge-when-you-come-to-it deal.

Back to that third definition of success, the one that concerns persons or things. Someone or something that is successful: a person or thing that succeeds.

This is where it gets personal. Are you a success, or aren’t you?

Don’t let others define this one for you. Look inside for the measure of your worth — not to outside acclaim or regard.

Own Your Success.

Own your definition of that word.

Don’t let fear of success or what success means be a barrier to your creative growth.

I am wishing you success in your endeavors this week. Happy writing!

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: No Pressure. Seriously.” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Lana Del Rey’s Cover of Chelsea Hotel

My husband played this song on the guitar the other night, and it reminded me how much I love it. Chelsea Hotel #2, a Leonard Cohen song from his 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony.

This Lana Del Rey version is my favorite.

Now here’s Leonard Cohen performing his song, along with a story about how the song came to be…

If you like, return to the link for the album title above — which will take you to Wikipedia. In the second paragraph under “Recording & Composition”, they mention the inspiration behind the song. I don’t want to give it away, because ever since I’ve known the song breaks my heart every time. So pursue that knowledge if you like, but it can be unknown afterward.

Own Your Writing Career: No Pressure. Seriously.

There are more critical things to worry about in life than your writing career. This might be a crazy turn to take in a series called Own Your Writing Career….but follow me for a second. I bet you’ve noticed that lots of what this series covers is how to keep your head screwed on straight while pursuing a creative career. And recognizing the feeling of pressure and stress and what you can do about it is part of staying mentally and emotionally healthy (while you drive yourself nuts with a creative career :)).

So, yeah, let’s admit that there are more important things to worry about in LIFE than your writing career. That said, if you don’t do any thinking and planning about your career, you won’t have one! There’s a balance that goes into this, and there’s no one recipe that’s going to work out best for every writer all the time. In fact, the balance can change day by day, week by week, and year by year. But if you’re feeling a ton of PRESSURE to get certain things done, to spend a lot more time than you have on your writing and promotion…take a deep breath.

The pressure will knock you on your ass if you let it. There will ALWAYS be more that you could do to create and promote your creations. But adding stress with untenable goals does not help you progress. It just turns you into a basket case.

Don’t worry so much. Let go of that feeling of pressure. No one lives or dies by how quickly we get a story out. Our entire career doesn’t change because we were a few weeks later than we wanted to be with finishing a series — or even a year later than we wanted to be. In order to embrace the long-term nature of establishing a creative career, you need to recognize and let go of the pressures associated with this type of work.

Here are some ways we creative types feel pressured — and some ideas for coping with that perceived pressure. It’s never going away, but you can learn to see the signs of taking on too much stress, and learn what to do to get yourself back on track. (You’ll probably need a reminder next year: I always do!)

So Many Choices!

As I’ve said before, this is the best time to be a writer in history. But…we’re also forging our own paths into a wilderness. It is the wilds out here, the old west, the lawless anarchy of endless CHOICE.

And that feels like a lot of pressure.

How can you decide which way to go, when there are more options than you can fully understand in your 24 hours per day?

You know what you do? You do SOMETHING. Any action to get your work in front of readers is better than no action at all. There is no one right way, and there is no way that is completely wrong, either.

It’s not easy to choose which stories to write, how to publish them, where to publish them, how to market them, where/when to advertise, which formats to use, which services to employ…….the list freaking goes on. And on.

Take the pressure off. Keep evaluating your options, but choose at least one way to move forward today, and one for tomorrow, and then the next day, and so on. Choose to do something, and in a few months you’ll be surprised how much you’ve accomplished by not allowing the many choices to stall you.

So Many Decisions!

Decision paralysis is a real and crippling thing. When you have too many decisions to make, it can be SO difficult to focus on making one at a time and moving forward.

When it comes to an artistic career, even more so. All of these decisions feel so intertwined, that it feels like if you make one decision here, you’re cutting off your path to make this decision over here….it can be so frustrating, when all your heart truly desires is to be back at the keyboard (or with your notebooks, or dictation device or whatever) creating a new story.

What works for me is to break whatever I’m trying to decide on into smaller pieces if I’m feeling paralyzed. What aspects can I agree (with myself) on? Sidenote: Ha! I’m sounding crazier and crazier here! Welcome to the writer life! Where do I need to do more research, or just force myself into making a choice to move forward? I also make pro and con lists when I’m really struggling with a certain decision.

Often, I’ll find my mind is actually made up — I know which direction I want or need to go, but for some reason I’m stalling. That reason is usually FEAR. In all caps.

Opportunities Abound!

In this brave new world, we’re seeing partnerships among creative people on a scale never before seen. It is EXCITING to be part of this growing and changing movement of creative expression and freedom.

It can also be another source of paralysis…because which opportunities are poor? Which are good? Which are GREAT?

Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how all of these different platforms, partnerships, and styles are going to play out long term.

Indulge in the ability to be creative. Where your heart leads, follow. And keep trying new things. Who knows — you might find the next best way to reach readers, or you might find new allies and friends on your road to success.

Be open to opportunities. That doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. If it feels wrong, or doesn’t fit your current needs, say no. (In a friendly, professional way, of course!) Maybe write it down as something to come back to in a couple of months….the way I have with Google Play, where I still have not uploaded my books, many months after thinking about it and deciding I wasn’t sure about it, and then getting distracted by other things. Ahem.

 

I meant to include the perceived pressures that come with success in this post…but I ended up with too much to say on that topic, so it’s coming next week! Wishing you all a happy and productive week!!

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: No Pressure. Seriously.” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Fiction Update (AKA How Many Projects Can This Crazy Author Juggle?!?)

Hello! I hope spring has been as fabulous to you and yours as it has been to us. We’re getting into the hot season faster than I’d like, but at least that means I can hear birds out my window, and watch the squirrels and their antics in the back yard. Squirrel babies are too cute.

It’s been a while since I gave a fiction update. I am still writing fiction, rest assured.

I’ve finished the second book in my Water Rites series — Crestfallen. It’s been through my editor and is now with beta readers. It will be out late June or early July, but I don’t have a specific release date yet. 

I’m about 20% into writing Castle and Crown, the third Water Rites book. I probably won’t get much farther on that book before Crestfallen is released.

I have turned my writing attention to a novella due in August for an anthology. This is a standalone book, but it will tie in with a series I’ll start releasing in 2016. (One that I am super, SUPER excited to start writing, but WILL NOT start until I finish one of these other series, or I will drive myself bonkers.) I’m at about the 20% mark on this novella, too. Since it’s a much shorter book, I think I can finish it in June, especially now that I’ve decided to set aside the next novel until it’s done. Hocus, pocus, FOCUS!!!

Some of you are wondering if I’ve forgotten something. NO! I haven’t forgotten! There just aren’t enough writing hours in the day! lol

After I’ve written Castle and Crown, I’ll write the final installment in the Foulweather Twins trilogy, The Unseen Mirror. I have not forgotten the Foulweather Twins series. I still love it very much and can’t wait to get back into Sage’s head for the final book. Also, I have two ideas for novellas that are tie-ins with that series. I may eventually write them. It’ll be good to finish the main series so that I’ll have more brain space to devote to … dang, pick one. 

So, to recap: The novel Crestfallen coming out in the next month; Castle & Crown novel in progress (same series); a novella for an anthology in progress (totally new); and the long-awaited third book for another fantasy series, The Unseen Mirror. That’s what I’m working on. I’ll finish writing all of these books by the end of the year, and all will be published by then except for The Unseen Mirror, which I think will come out around February 2016.

…and that is my fiction writing recap. Have a great week!

Own Your Writing Career: Celebrate Your Successes

Look…here’s the thing. Many people who say they want to write, never actually set pen to the page, or fingers to the keyboard, or voice to the recorder. They talk about writing, but they never actually accomplish any writing.

If you have written a book, completely, start to finish, then this puts you FAR ahead of the pack. You did what most wanna-be writers never accomplish.

Celebrate this success. The first time it feels monumental. Do something to mark the occasion. Hell, go big and throw yourself a party if you want to.

But get back at it — because writers are people who write, they aren’t people who have written.

If you’ve written several books, you’re a WRITER. You’ve legitimately earned that title. It isn’t just a one-off, bucket-list thing for you. Writing is a big part of your life on a regular basis.

That puts you far ahead of the FRONT of the pack.

Celebrate! Not only did you write your first book, but you kept on going. You’re a better writer now than you ever could have imagined when you wrote your first book. You’ve met a few new fear-beasties, and let them have it. You are a champion!

Celebrate!!!

…And then get back to work!!!

Hehe. I love to say that. And I live it, so I get to say it.

Seriously, though — there are aspects of our writing careers that we need to acknowledge and celebrate. It can be too easy to get mired in all of the ways we feel behind. Don’t do that to you — make sure you take time to count your wins.

Celebrate! You Are Winning! You Are Doing It!

You set a huge goal for yourself — probably years ago. And since then, with each passing season you’ve grown into a better writer. You’ve conquered challenges you couldn’t even see around the bend when you set out. You realize now that you can take on more than you thought. You are WINNING at this writing thing. You are doing what so few are able to do.

Celebrate! You’re Still a Functioning Human Being!

I’m writing this series for people who struggle with balancing their writing career and goals and their own well-being. I think that includes most of us at one point or another. I have been there, too, and I still occasionally visit the unbalanced side. It’s important to acknowledge that to be a happy, thriving person, you need more than a writing life. You need a life. Celebrate when the writing feels good. Celebrate getting away from your writing, too. Celebrate that you are a whole, living, thriving being. Bask in the enjoyment of simple pleasures. Celebrate life!

Celebrate! There Are So Many Choices! Now Which Ones Are Right for You?

We live in the best time in history for writers. There are so many ways to be read at this stage of the digital revolution. Worldwide, the growth in opportunity is absolutely astounding. Now that you’re writing regularly, you have choices. Celebrate that we have so many different routes open to us today. Celebrate that you can do this writing thing your way. You don’t have to jump on anyone else’s bandwagon. However, if that particular wagon looks great next year, celebrate that you can switch rides at any time.

The idea of having so many choices can feel overwhelming — but try not to get lost there. As long as you keep producing new works, your options continue to expand. You can always try something new next month or next year, or with the next book.

Since the ideas of choice and opportunity…and success… are so filled with perceived pressure, that’s going to be the topic of my next Own Your Writing Career post.

For now, take time to count your wins, and celebrate your successes. Know that as you keep on working, you’ll be able to look back and take stock of your growth as a writer, season by season and year by year. There’s an inspiring thought for you.

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: Celebrate Your Successes” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Own Your Writing Career: Plan for Life to Happen

Yep, it’s happened again. I’m full stream in the middle of completing some of the largest goals I’ve ever set for myself, have multiple projects lined up out toward eternity…and life chooses now to remind me that I am a mortal human with physical needs, and with two children who ALSO have physical needs. Oh, not to mention a job. A rather large job that sometimes decides to completely involve my head space even when I’m not there. (Bother!)

My four-year-old came down with an awful cough two and a half weeks ago. She also has seasonal allergies and it’s been pollen central lately. Since then, I got a new project at work that is rather BIG and BRAINY, and then I got sick, and it’s like where I’d been swimming through clear water in terms of my writing projects, I’m now working my way through a muddy swamp. I keep a very tight schedule, and when stuff starts to fall apart, I start to feel scattered pretty fast. However, I’ve been around long enough to know it happens.

A couple of times a year, I hit patches where I need to resist the urge to go off into fictionland, and focus more of my attention on my actual life. I know this is a blog series about the WRITING LIFE, and you know that writing is very valuable to me and I will never give it up. However, when other parts of life begin to go awry, writing new stories is always something that can wait a few weeks. For me. We all have to pick our battles and do our own math on what part of our lives we sacrifice to get through the rough spots…I’ve done mine, and I don’t regret how it sums up for me.

In a few years I won’t have small children anymore (part of me is sad about that!), so I’ll cherish my time with them now and make the adjustments I need to ensure I’m there for them. You know, the books I write hang out in my mind for years before they get written…a few more weeks does not make or break any part of this deal. But for other parts of my life, I only get so many chances.

I took a day trip to the beach with one of my best friends this week. I’m so glad I took that day. We’ve been visiting that same spot since freshman year of college (16 years ago!!). I hadn’t spent that much time just chatting/walking/laughing with her since before I had my kids. And we took my dog, who is almost 10. It isn’t too likely we’ll make a trip like that again while he’s still alive. We had a blast. I am so glad I made sure the trip happened, even though I’m in the middle of this cold and super stressed with work and things.

Plan for life to happen. And plan to enjoy life. It’s important.

Instead of letting it stress me out that I’m now going to be a couple of weeks behind my very ambitious goal for publishing my latest novel, I can do the math, adjust my schedule, and be perfectly happy with my new publication date.

Life happens. Accept it and plan for it.

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: Plan for Life to Happen” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Own Your Writing Career: Listen to Your Gut; Remember Your Values

A career in the arts can be the makings of a true obsession. No matter how we try, or how long we work, it can feel as though we can’t get things done fast enough. But to be a happy writer, you have to recall what made you happy before you ever set off on this crazy journey. You’re a person, too. Virtually no one has a life where writer or artist is the sole role. There are other things in life, and you can’t ignore them. Why would you want to?

I’ve had multiple phases during the four-year stretch of my writing career since I published my first book. Phases of giving myself over to the art, to the obsession, and phases of having to truly retreat in order to feel like I can function as a normal person (and parent, and wife, and worker). The pendulum swings, but you can reduce the magnitude of the swings with some forethought.

You have to remember your values, and you have to listen to your gut.

If you feel like you’re doing too much — like you’re scrambling ineffectively after every little detail….well, you probably are doing too much, and you’ve probably been managing to do too much for some time before it caught up with you. This can leave you feeling like, “Why was THIS STEP so simple a few weeks ago, and now I can barely keep my head screwed on straight?”

Humans have an amazing capacity to work, work, work in emergency situations, to keep going as the adrenaline fires and the NEED continues. But when we work like that, we also need to rest and recover in order to get back on track and be healthy. And this emergency-mode-to-recovery-mode way of operating is no way to set yourself up for success in a career in the arts. It makes your art not only your obsession, but also your worst enemy.

So listen to your gut and when you feel you’re doing too much, take a step back and make adjustments NOW, so you don’t need that recovery period (unproductive time) to recuperate. Begin to step back before you’re in the panic zone. If you’re feeling like your art is an EMERGENCY…it is probably time to adjust and rebalance. You can only hold onto that EMERGENCY production mode for so long before it hurts your health and well-being. Plan better than that — assuming you’re after a long-term, happy and productive writing career.

And then the values.

You don’t want to look back in five or ten years and realize that while all you felt was EMERGENCY, MUST PRODUCE, some key part of the life you’d wanted for yourself disappeared into the foggy mist of NeverHappened.

The example I’ll use is my kids. I’ve always wanted to be a mom. When I was younger I thought I’d stay at home with kids….and then I got a Master’s degree and the debt that comes with it, and a great job…and I have this whole other DREAM that I’ve had forever — to be a writer. Of course I choose to tackle all of this at once.

I published my first book in 2011, when my kids were ages two and not-yet-one. I knew what I was doing when I first published. As I decided to become a parent and then had our two little darlings, I could feel the writing dream kind of WHOOSHING by me. I could have settled into the parenting life and two decades could go by without making any progress on my dream…instead, I decided to begin tackling it, and to take my time doing so. I decided to do so with my eyes firmly on the future. I know that if I work at it, I will have a lot to show after those two decades, even for the small amount of time I’m able to put in regularly. At the pace I’m working at, I’ll have well over fifty publications in that time. And I still get to spend quality time with my kids.

I am not a writer who spends all of her time writing. I only write fiction five to ten hours a week — that’s what I can manage while making a living and being the mom that I want to be. Being a good mother is a value I hold very close, and one that I know I would regret if I didn’t pay it enough attention, especially while my kids are young. But being a writer — and my own true self — is also dear to me, and I would be ignoring that value if I didn’t allow myself the time to write and make progress as a writer. Doing both as I want to makes the writing more slow than I’d like (and makes it feel much more slow than the CULTURE would have me work), but overall I am a happier and more productive person, and a good example for my kids of a decently balanced person.

You have your own values. Just be sure you’re paying them some mind, and not getting sucked too deep into the quagmire of obsession. Choose to focus on the long game, and be a happy writer as you tread the path. Best of luck establishing your balance, it is different for each of us.

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: Listen to Your Gut; Remember Your Values” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson

Own Your Writing Career: Finish What You Start

I have to tell myself this one A LOT. I love the bright and shiny, and I have little self control.

You have to finish what you start. Writers write, yes…but writers also must FINISH writing, and get their work out into the world. This can be really tough the first few go-arounds. Talk about new fears! Like you needed new ones!?!

I always have my eyes on my next publication — that is getting my work out, to me. For some, this will be submitting to magazines or publishers. (Please don’t say it’s agents, or you’ll make me cry.) Since I indie publish, I am always working toward that next time I can hit the ‘publish’ button.

Driving toward deadlines

I have a writing schedule that stretches out years into the future. I’ve mentioned this before. I have a lot of ideas, and sometimes they don’t want to get neatly into line, they want to flurry all over the place and try to keep me busy writing multiple stories at the same time. I use the schedule to force them into line and determine where to spend the bulk of my writing time. I also let myself spend some of my writing time goofing off on *bright and shiny* or working on a background project that I suddenly feel passion toward.

Attached to the schedule are deadlines for when I think I can get a book done. These aren’t hard and fast for me. I’m just not willing to feel guilt about being a little late compared to my ambitious goals (and with a family and job to worry about, too). I like to set ambitious goals — I believe it makes me more productive overall, even if it means that I am often late on my own deadlines. This is a matter of getting to know yourself. Because while I set a deadline, I know it isn’t a TRUE deadline, so I always know I’ll be a little later than that.

It works for me, to keep me moving as quick as I can manage without driving my family crazy (I’ll be talking more about that in a post in a couple of weeks).

So, I tend to know which book will be published next in each series, which short story will be finished and published next, and which work for my pseudonym will be published next. This gives me enough variety to have fun with, and I’m never stuck on all of the projects at once. I just keep everything rolling toward that next publication.

Knowing when to call it done

Another part of finishing what you start is knowing when to call a work done. This takes a lot of practice, folks. You’ll spend your first years looking at your work and wishing it truly represented what was in your mind as you wrote it. You’ll want to be better, and you’ll worry that if you can’t make THIS story as good as you want it to be, you can’t make ANY story as great as you want.

Don’t spend too long hung up here. There’s no secret formula, but here’s something that works for me: I understand that I cannot see my work clearly. Being the critic of my work means I won’t finish and move on, won’t practice, won’t get better at storytelling…and that I’ll eventually go nuts with it and probably stop writing.

Many, many writers get lost in this very maze. Don’t let it happen to you. If you finish a story or book and don’t like it well enough to publish it, well….okay. But don’t let it stop you from moving on to the next book, and the next. That’s the way you’ll start to grow into the writer you want to become. Always assume your best work is far in the future, and move toward it each and every day. That’s the writer life. It doesn’t have to be miserable. It does take patience. And it takes finishing and letting go.

You have to let your work go. You have to move on.

Trusting your work, and moving on

Figure out what sort of process you’ll need to go through mentally to remove yourself from each book as it is completed. I believe this is different for all writers, and it’s a matter of practice to get this “detachment” down. We get really into what we’re working on. We crave it, we see it in our mind’s eye, we press it down onto the page in black ink — so stark and staring…did we get there? We can’t know, not with our own work. Listen to your readers so that you can grow as a storyteller with your next stories — but don’t focus on trying to revise and rework stories to fit every reader opinion you hear.

Move on. Invest yourself in the next book. Let yourself feel it and be moved THERE…and don’t spend much, if any, time looking back. Finish, trust it is done, give yourself a pat on the back, unleash your creation on the world, and move on.

A final note

You’re not going to finish EVERYTHING you start. I know that I won’t. Sometimes I start a story goofing off, and a few thousand in it just doesn’t work for some reason, or I completely lose interest. That’s okay; it’s part of my process, and I know enough about the way I work now to understand that I can’t get attached to every single idea that pops into my head. That’s why the key, for me, is to be focused on what projects, major and minor, I’m finishing next. What is next in line? What am I finishing next, what are the steps I need to complete to do so, and when do I think I can manage it by?

Keep on moving! Happy writing, people!

For a full list of Own Your Writing Career posts in the order they were written, visit my Writers page. I’ll be back with another Own Your Writing Career post next Thursday. Until then, happy writing!!

“Own Your Writing Career: Finish What You Start” copyright © 2015 by J.R. Pearse Nelson