Fumbling towards adequacy

The last few weeks have been tough.

I’m going to be honest – publishing my book didn’t feel the way I thought it would feel. It’s not a let down – it still blows my mind that my book is out there and that people in Australia, England, Germany, France, have read it. My characters are very real to me and to know that they now exist in other people’s brains as well… yeah, that’s not a let down. That’s amazing.

But I do feel pressure. Immense pressure, from the moment The Dead went live, to get Boneyard finished and out there so that I can move on to the next one. Like the Foo Fighter’s song – done, done, and on to the next one. Because though I like my day job (and spent years earning the degree to get said job), writing is the real work for me. Writing is what I do, regardless of whether I have published books or even I can write the story down. I am always in the story. But it would be nice to be able to do it full time. And to do it full time, I need more books. So there’s the pressure. To produce more.

And self-publishing is all about marketing. So a lot of time that I used to devote to writing is now spent working on marketing stuff. Though I personally never really considered traditional publishing, I can see the appeal of having someone do the marketing for you.

I’m a newbie at this. I’m still learning. I’m trying to be cautious and smart as I move forward. I’ve got a busy life, you know? I’ve got a full time job that requires me to be outside, away from my computer, for 10+ hours a day. I’ve got a husband and a kid. I wish I could spend more time with them. I wish I had more time, period. More time to write books, more time to play dinosaurs with my son, more time to work out.

So tonight, as soon as I publish this, I’ll work on Boneyard. I’ve got to keep pushing at this. Maybe the pressure is a good thing, motivating me so that I can one day have that time. Motivating me to finish this damn thing.

And then, on to the next one.