Weekly Hustle & Creative Wins: WEEK 17 (4/25/16)
THOUGHTS, RAMBLINGS, WHATEVS
So my word count for this week was ABYSMAL, and to be honest, I struggled with the notion that not only should I cancel the pre-order of The Iron Maiden, but that I should also just cancel my author writing life, lol.
But I’m not, obviously. There’s no way I’m going to let my reading community, or myself, down!
Still, I’m definitely on an emotional rollercoaster where my author career is concerned. I was feeling mega-frustrated because I felt I had no time to really get into a writing space, what with being 24/7 with the little one, and all. I was (and still am) also struggling with my enjoyment of my craft. These feelings honestly were brought on by my type-A nature that is always goal-ifying everything in my life. Goal #1: Write 5,000 words a day. Goal #2: break 1 million words a year. Goal #3: publish 10 books next year.
Etcetera. Somewhere along the way, I had to let go of some goals, at least temporarily, so that I could actually reconnect and enjoy my writing and my creation process. Otherwise, my passion will die on the vine. Anyways, I’ve had a series of blog posts just a brewin’ inside of me around this very topic, but have postponed them specifically so that I can use my limited time to focus on finishing my novel. But I WILL discuss the “goal release” and “falling back in love with your craft” process at some point, most likely at the end of this quarter. It’s an important topic to talk about, especially with the wonderful transparency of the indie pub industry, where you can look into the amazing successes of other authors and want to emulate their success and flexible lifestyles.
Doing this for love, though, is definitely a first and foremost priority for me. I’ve been wanting to pick up Susan Kaye Quinn’s “For Love or Money” again, and finish reading it, but of course, I’m eyeballs deep in two other books, and am trying to finish those first, lol!
In slightly cooler news, I feel as though my cup is getting full on learning in some areas of my creative education. What I mean is NOT that I’ll ever be done learning, but that I’m now seeing a lot of the same info being replicated by both the big cheese authors in indie publishing AND by the big cheese online marketers in other fields. This is a great sign because repeated information means that my learning on this front is coming to a crawl (temporarily), and thus, I can reduce my class taking and increase my execution and action!
I’m not quite ready to execute JUST yet. There’s still a lot of preparation to do. But by the beginning of July in Q3, I’ll be ready to go full speed ahead with my author goals and business goals!
LAST WEEK’S HAUL
What I wrote: More of The Iron Maiden, but my word count was a hot mess. It’s already going WAY better this week, but I’m aiming for 5,000 words a day. Obvs, I’ll update ya’ll on whether or not that’s worked out, lol!
What I edited: LOTS of author branding stuff got done, which I’m super happy with. I created a favicon and lots of website and branding stuff for my secret pen name. Also updated the favicon on THIS site, if you haven’t noticed! 
