So I’ve done it. I’m a writer! Except I don’t make any money (I really need to change that) not many people are reading my book (I’ve got to fix that) and somewhere in the midst of all that I have to find time to write even more and improve my craft. Why hello giant boulder that just got three times larger when I thought I had reached the top of the hill, only to find there’s a bloody mountain on the other side of it I have yet to climb…

As far as I’ve come there’s still miles to go. Writing is hard enough but it’s also rewarding and satisfying. I probably couldn’t stop now if I wanted to and I don’t want to. Improving my craft as a writer? Yeah that’ll be work, work I’ll probably end up loving every second of. Becoming a book marketing genius so that I can pay the bills I’ve been neglecting in order to concentrate on the joys of writing? Yeah not looking forward to that at all.

In fact, the sheer amount of information I have to assimilate, the changes I have to make, the doors I have to knock on with beggar’s cup in hand – depresses the high holy hells out of me. Writing, as hard as it is, is the fun part. Everything that isn’t writing doesn’t have even half of the same pay off and I’ll admit I’m artistic enough to prefer living in my art without all thoughts of the need to finance the “living” part. Almost.

If I don’t reach my financial goals by the end of the year, I will have to go back to office work and put the writing on the back burner again. The year is half over and I’m not even close. Threaten an addict with cold turkey rehab and see if they go and rob someone faster than I force myself to master this marketing bs. No one’s going to take my writing time from me damnit!

There is a pitfall here however. As determined as I am to meet my goals so that I can justify another year writing like the happiest mad woman ever, facing the big block of the backend (what I call everything that isn’t writing, marketing, blogging, twitter, cover design, stat checking, editing, etc.) I get horribly depressed. Depressed and fidgety, fidgety and sidetracked, sidetracked and turned around till I’m so dizzy and I’ve lost so much time and those other two books I wanted to finish this year aren’t even halfway ready to be published.

So I’ll have to work on this marketing shit while writing, let that carrot on a stick help me move the boulder up the mountain. The ever present need for balance in one’s writing life, I’m still finding it, at some point I have to add ‘other people’ back into the mix but gods they’re such a waste of writing time!