Have you ever been in the middle of doing something, stop, look around, and wonder...what the hell am I doing?Welcome to my (writing) life. Well, probably my real life too, but that’s another blog post entirely.I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted this writing gig to work out when I first started. You know, publish a few books, get a couple thousand fans, maybe a small publishing deal, and make some money.Two out of four ain’t bad, right? This year celebrates five years since I decided to make the leap into authoring. Five years, seven fiction novels (another in progress), a handful of short stories, two non-fiction books, and a whole lot of self-doubt. I’ve made some money (last month I was able to buy a Starbucks!), but still no publishing deal (which I’m okay with) and my fans, while few, are wonderful. But I still find myself a bit...lost. And dissatisfied with my writing career, such as it is.Over the last year or so, I’ve found myself sitting at the same crossroads. Do I go left and forge ahead, though I’m not entirely happy with how things are going? Or do I go right, where I set the writing career aside as attempted but failed? I won’t lie, there have been times where I’ve leaned to the right. Hard. Because - let’s face it - with raising a family, working full time, having another side business, and just life in general, it would be so easy to let the writing thing go and have the extra time, money, and energy to devote to everything else.But I’m apparently a glutton for punishment and, once again, turned to the left.This time, however, I’ve made some decisions that will help (hopefully) ease the stress I’ve placed on myself in this journey of self-publishing. And here’s the big one:I’m not following anyone else’s plan but my own.You other authors know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen the ads.“Follow this plan and your sales will triple!”“Want to be more prolific? This plan’s for you!”I won’t lie, I’ve read more than my fair share of these articles and plans. Even tried implementing a few. And realized none of it worked for me. Not for my time, my energy, and in some cases, my money. But here’s the thing, every time I tried one of these plans and it didn’t work, I felt more like a failure. Which made me desperate enough to try a different one...and the cycle continued. No more.Now I’m on my own plan. And it’s this: I’m going to focus on the writing. Not the promoting or the selling but the act of actually stringing words together to make a story. Here’s why...The constant need to promote and sell stresses me out in a way out way more than I ever thought possible. You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t been around a whole on social media lately. Maybe you just don’t care. *shrug* But for the five of you who’ve wondered, this is why. Because I didn’t get into this game to constantly be saying, in so many words, “buy my book.” I hate selling (which is weird, because I have a whole other side business of products which - surprise - requires selling). I want to write the stories that call to me, make them the best I can make them, and have them for the people who want to read them. Do I get that I won’t get sales without promotion? Of course. Do I care at this point in time? Nope. Because the stress of the constant need for promo is stifling my creativity. Not only in the creative process of coming up with ideas and words, but in the aspect of time. Who can concentrate on the details of a story with they have to continuously carve out time to create teasers and games, do takeovers, worry themselves into the ground about ads, and so on? Unless it’s something you thrive on (which I don’t), it’s soul crushing. I think the promotion-and-selling aspect of this gig is what’s burned me out more than anything. Well, that and the constant drama or crisis-of-the-week within the industry. It all gets to be too much. If I’m going to be completely honest, there are times where I think the only thing keeping me in the writing game is the fact that I don’t want to lose the good friends I’ve made if I were to step away entirely. Not to mention I’d be asking myself “What if I hadn’t quit? What was waiting just around the corner?” I have very few real regrets in my life and I don’t want giving up on writing to be one of them.So the plan is simple: focus on the writing. Get the words down, finish projects, and build up my list so when the seventh circle of hell comes back around (aka promoting), I’ll be ready. How long will this take? Who knows. It will take as long as it takes. For not only my creativity, but also for my sanity and personal well-being. Because if I’m not okay, then my books won’t be either. :) Stay tuned for The New Plan (Part 2) - Knowing My Worth

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