I Don’t Know What I’m Doing. Here’s Why I Keep Showing Up Anyway.

Hey there! I hope this lovely holiday season is developing nicely for you. We’re happily making our holiday gifts, brainstorming ideas, getting the calendar squared away (huge, huge family) and probably already eating too much in the process. That’s just how fall seems to go around here; it gets rainy, I start making soups, and as cool weather comes I spend a lot of time in my kitchen.

I’ve had one of those afternoons where my thoughts won’t stop circling. I listened to two podcasts over the last day that stirred things up for me. They were the most recent episodes from the two shows I make sure to listen to every week: Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn Podcast, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast (links to the site of each show).

Joanna Penn had a futurist tilt to this week’s episode, looking at publishing in 2027. I love The Creative Penn partially because of Joanna’s positive outlook. She’s a great example of how your attitude can work for you. She looks for opportunity, she chases it, she makes her lists and checks them twice. Her mindset is 100% can do. And if she feels like she can’t, she has a remarkable aptitude for dissecting why and challenging herself to do it anyway. Listening to her helps me with my to-do lists — I usually come away with a couple of things from every episode that I need to think through for my own publishing. But she helps me as much with staying positive and focused on how all of these little bits we do along the way add up to whatever we’re making.

I’m going to dive deeper here….what you want to make is incredibly important self-knowledge. It is worth thinking about so that you can appropriately focus your energy, and make choices about what things aren’t worth your energy. Many writers I know started out chasing something that upon further reflection — or even achievement — was not the life that they wanted.

For a long time, I hoped for enough income from writing that I could leave my day job. But I realized along the way just how much work this publishing gig is — and I realized that depending on writing for a monthly income doesn’t jive well with my personality. I’m risk averse. I like to know another month of income I’ve counted on is going to arrive. So I’ve adjusted my marker, and before I consider leaving my job (which is a great job!) I will set aside enough income to pay my salary for a year, and I’ll have an average income that’s stayed at the level I need for at least two years.

And you know what? If that means I continue to work at a job that I enjoy, if that means that writing becomes the second paycheck and never makes up all of my income…that is a-okay.

I’m more focused on being happily productive every day and being present for the people who need me than I am on any specific yardstick of success with publishing. Being happily productive is the success. Our needs in terms of income are taken care of. I’m already there.

Whatever you’re making, you do it in small steps. It’s the consistent effort that builds something. If you don’t know where you’re headed — if you don’t have a vision for your ideal, that thing you’re shooting for, you have little hope of landing where you want to be. Set your vision for the long term, divide it up into manageable tasks you can actually accomplish, and start doing a little every day.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast featured Andrea Pearson (link to her Amazon page; she writes fantasy and nonfiction for writers). She’s one heck of a driven woman. I like it.