Themed Month June: Chaos

I missed last month’s blog post and nearly this one as well. I’ll get to the reasons in a minute. But first the release for May: the fourth and finalfairy tale retellings bundle is available on Amazon (even in KU). I will make the others available at the other retailers as soon as the chaos dies down. Here are all four bundles again:

 

The reasons why I missed the last blog post are manifold. For one, I’ve hit a major low in motivation. I’m currently writing short stories, and I get praise for many of them (e.g. from Writers of the Future judge David Farland and others), but whenever I send them to a paying market, they get declined. I’ve been publishing at least one book per month since March 2020 (so that’s more than a year worth of stories) and there’s no increase in sales.

Also, in December a personal disaster stuck and I’m still not over it. It influences my time management, and the ideas that want to be written tend to grow much darker these days. Many turn into stories I have no interest in writing.

So all in all, I’m questioning my writing career. I’ve written and Indie published non-stop for more years than I care to admit. I’ve seen people have success with their stories (and I do not envy them, they put in just as much heart, blood, and sweat as I do) while mine remain invisible (I know I’m an idiot when it comes to marketing).

I still write, and I still love the writing side, but all drive to get things written and published has left me. I’ve run into a wall and instead of getting up to find a way around it, I’m sitting here, feeling drained and tired and unwilling to go on.

I’d appreciate some motivating words. Have you read one of my books? Shall I keep going or would it be better to concentrate on something else?