Shit. (Or Confessions of a Newly Self-Published Author with Writer’s Block)

So about a month ago I realized, as I eeked out a few hundred words this afternoon, like a truck driver on a steady diet of protein trying to take a frenzied dump at a truck stop toilet, that I had to admit to myself that perhaps I was in a bit of a crisis.

You see, after publishing my third novel in mid-July, I told myself I was going to take a break from the stresses of self-publishing, platform creating and maintenance, marketing, Amazon rankings, and sales and just go “back into the lab.” Start making more stories, as fast as possible, as easy as possible.

I gave myself many excuses when my time in front of a blank screen became overrun with distractions. When I got caught up in the stats, in the un-subscribes, the page likes, the negative reviews, the ads that suddenly stopped working. Or when I simply took a nap or watched a movie instead. Or read another romance. I said, maybe I need inspiration, once I step away the ideas will start flowing again. And they did. In fact, there’s no shortage of ideas. I’ve got at least four books on the assembly line of my mind. When I didn’t have the energy to continue one, I started on the other. And then I did it again. And again.

Now it’s been two months. And aside from a novella that’s only semi done and basically a re-hash, written exclusively for my subscribers, I have about… 25K words to account for.

It would take about three months to responsibly release a new book, provided I speed up the process by doing the editing myself (barf), find cover art, and all that jazz, so even if I started today, we’re talking 2019 before I can get another book released. Which I anticipated, but I also anticipated having a rash of books ready to release one by one by the end of this year.

I keep trying to go back to see where I’ve gone “wrong.” How did I get so much energy to write those first three books? I came to accept that I could write a rough draft in 3-4 weeks. I mean, after three books why would I expect anything less? Was it the pressure that came from going from complete and total obscurity to…less obscurity? Maybe. Trying to keep in mind the input of readers and reviewers and critics? Maybe. Trying to live up to the standard and somewhat intimidating success of the first book? Maybe.

But then I realized I was overlooking the obvious. The first book came b/c I felt that there was a book that hadn’t been written, a story that didn’t exist that needed to. And that was my motivation. Every day was exciting, because I was writing a story that hadn’t been written, and the muse in me would say, “what’s gonna happen next?” And I would have to write for such a question to be answered.

Well, now that book exists.

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Which is great. But sort of makes me say, “well…shit.”

B/c now I’m back to my writer’s vegetative hibernation state that I was before I began. Every time I sit down to write it’s like, “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

“Does this book need to exist? No? Then we’re done here.”

Turns out my creativity doesn’t give a flying fuck that I’m trying to run a business, build a platform, gain a following, or NONE OF THAT. You got ideas? Cool. Really good premise? Wow. Marketable? Hot hot heat.

Oh, you want us to write that??? Hmmmm….

Oh, you want us to be disciplined?? Wow, now I’m extremely bored.

My mind was a broken movie theater. Fragments of scenes, stuck. A vivid dream that instantly became nothing but ash once you’re wide awake. Not worth the words it would cost to bring them into existence. What to do?

*sigh* Oh well, I thought. It’s nothing I hadn’t experienced before. I was most likely that all those professional pressures had indeed gotten to me, not to mention personal ones that had to be managed simultaneously. Who knows who or what was supposed to help me navigate the maze successfully. I thought “maybe I’ll just be a one-hit wonder.” Maybe I’ll be the George R. R. Martin of interracial romance. Maybe I’ll lose the fire for any of it and just become a horticulturist or a house flipper and just cash a royalty check of a few hundred dollars every so often. Or maybe I’ll become famous blogging about not writing.

Or maybe I’ll wake up one day as I did so many months ago, with a nugget, that becomes a lightning bug, that becomes an oncoming train that becomes a baby that becomes a book.

And then I remembered.

That nugget started as a free write. Two characters in a room.

Inwardly I gave myself a dopey hit to the forehead.

A quarter of a million words under my belt and I somehow forgot that it all begins with two characters in a room?

*sigh*

Slowly but surely, I found my way back. It’s still not the 3,000+ words a day routine it was before, but I can write sit down and produce something every day without thinking about doing something, anything else.

It’s my firm belief that I owe making it as far as I have made it in life in large part to my innate ability to not give a shit.

It is what has kept my work honest and noteworthy and polarizing. And it is what I will continue to do. Even if it means breaking one of the cardinal rules of successful self-publishing.

If I’m ever to write another book, I know I have to instinctively ground myself in this ability to not give a shit. It is an ability, because it is truly not easy to do without the inclination.

Without it, I know I would be overrun. I would be dragged to the hospital with a heart attack after sitting at my dining room table in front of my computer for four days straight with a strong cup of coffee at hand.

Without it, the books that I’ve written so far wouldn’t exist. I just sat and wrote more words for this blog than I have in the last few days. Easily. And I have to honor that. I have to honor it all. It’s not gone, I know its there, and I have something to say. But it’s gotta be important, it’s gotta be edifying, it’s gotta be necessary, and it’s gotta be expedient.

Otherwise, there’s just no point.

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