So, this week has had me in a ‘blah’ kind of mood, which contributed to me taking a mini break from writing. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I came to the realization that as I work towards publishing my completed projects, all of which are years old, that I’m not the same person I was when I wrote them. I’ve changed. Maybe even evolved? Like a mid-level Pokemon. Still the same but maybe with an extra leaf, or something…
That’s not to say that I will write unlike myself in the future, or that I’m going to start writing non-fiction novels about the French Revolution. I don’t expect a crazy shift away from my style, even if I do explore other genres. Hopefully, my new works are just better executed, more tightly written and as enjoyable as possible. All I want is to improve my skills so I can better tell the stories that interest me. And in turn I hope they interest you!
But first, I have to stop getting fucking distracted by things that take me out of the mindset of editing #1 Crush, because I have a timeline I want to keep. Which means I need to curtail these mighty distractions:
1. Checking my sales: That’s right. I admit it. This isn’t my first time publishing, but this is my first time self-publishing and watching people buy your work and give it rave reviews can be as addictive as crack. It’s probably a blessing that they dropped off some otherwise I might be a newbie puddle of goo and gratitude. It’s at least as addictive as a Krispy Kreme donut, or an original Netflix series…Speaking of which….
2. Netflix: Because nothing says “I’m not doing shit today,” like clicking the play button once you’ve found something to watch instantly. I did okay holding out at first, but in the end Hemlock Grove was ingested rapidly. Orange Is the New Black is thankfully out of the way, but I think I’m totally warped by how many episodes of Bob’s Burgers I watched in a row. When S2 of The Fall gets back I’ll be all over it, and there are too many things to name in my queue. My saving grace is that I binge sparingly as a whole.
3. Tumblr: Oh boy. I had to do aversion therapy on myself. You start scrolling and the next thing you know you’re a scene out of Limitless. There’s no recollection of passed time, there might be a dead body somewhere, you’re jittery and you’re limbs are stiff. And I didn’t do Tumblr a few months ago. I got roped in by my writing buddy, Soular (a fellow Literotica author), and the first thing I did was say hello to Nerd4Music (a fellow Literotica author), and a few months later I was doing an author interview for Bianca Dean (a fellow Literotica author…are you sensing a pattern here?). Needless to say Tumblr has been awesome for inspiration, mingling with my writing buddies and readers, for consciousness and general fuckery. But man, is it distracting as hell.
4. Surfing the internet: Because sometimes it’s really important to find out when America Ferrera’s birthday is. Or when The Kills are playing in my city. Or I just need to see that cat video, or laugh at the dumbest tweets of the past year. Oh and my personality type? ENFP and INFP. With just a one percent difference between Introverted and Extroverted, with a lean towards the latter. What does that mean? It means I Googled that shit for another hour and came to the conclusion that it depends on how the wind blows, which makes sense because I’m a Taurus Sun with a Scorpio Ascendant. What’s that you ask? Luckily for both of us, I’ve already Googled/read about that to death and back. It means I’m a contradiction in so many words. I blame all this on my Aquarius moon anyway.
5. Plotting a future novel: This is odd but accurate, because while it revolves around writing, there is no actual work product involved. It’s minor planning mixed with day-dreaming. Mental masturbation if you will. I had an epiphany yesterday about my paranormal story, Forgotten, and I jotted down ideas and talked about it a mile a minute with a friend. But to get to that I have to finish editing #1 Crush. And that just reminds me I’m behind my original schedule. Writing is work, awesome work, amazingly freeing work. But it’s work none-the-less. Sometimes the grass is greener and you find yourself hopping the fence for a bit, imagining how you will wow people, spending a little sexy time with a mysterious male lead or a conflicted yet strong female protagonist. But when a guy like Gabriel is calling your name it’s not that hard to cross back over to the other yard…
So, I’ve been consciously cutting back in the hopes that I can stop effing around, get the edits done by the end of this month and send them off to my editor for review. I have faith in myself, though. Things have been great and this was just a mini-break between the ecstatic high of publication and the solid ground of starting over again. Violette Dubrinsky, when she was giving me author advice, said that the best PR is writing the next book. And my next several works are written! I just need to edit. And get off Tumblr.
And stop surfing the net.
And not click ‘Play’.
And…well, you get the idea.
