Sweating the Long Road

Friday’s notification from the Kindle Scout people that my nomination period had come to an end, and The Builders had now entered its review period came with a healthy dose of relief. Tonight’s notification that it had not been selected means I’ll be starting the publication process through KKP this week. Watch for the purchase links here on Wednesday.

🙂

One thing I’ve seen repeatedly with authors who are able to build writing careers that earn them a living is that the best advertising for their books is releasing a new book. Since my most recent previous release was in January of 2014, I’ve lost any momentum I might have built up from my first seven publishing efforts, and I’m anxious to get back on the horse. My five-year plan is to aim for three releases per year. This year I’ll have two (if I’m super-industrious in the next couple months), and I still have to meet my deadline for my January 4 release of the follow-on to the book I’m currently working on.

So I’m feeling more than a little under the gun.

Naturally, that meant we had birthdays to celebrate and social obligations to meet. Last week our oldest girl turned six; this week our youngest girl turned two. Luckily for us, that means they’re beyond the worst of their puppy shenanigans, so when we went to the family dinner on my niece’s birthday in between times, they were relaxed about it. Yesterday, when we went to the bigger party to celebrate my niece’s thirteen years, we were a little too relaxed about it. An hour into the cook-out and we had voicemails from our neighbor to let us know he’d put KouKi inside after she’d howled at our back door for 45 minutes. Apparently, in our rush to get to the cupcakery before it closed, we didn’t check to make sure everyone was inside. We’re still wondering how that happened. I suppose there really is a first time for everything.

It’s possible too little sleep was a contributing factor.

I’m also in shock that my niece could already have reached her thirteenth birthday. I’m still trying to reconcile the little girl I knew with the young woman who is. She’s smart, accomplished, kind, and bombarded with so many options, I wonder which path she’ll eventually choose to follow. For her sake, I hope she helps make a lie of the current numbers of women in STEM careers. While my path has had its successes, its unconventional nature has meant that as I’ve grown older I’ve sought out opportunities that offer more stability than a writer’s inclination normally affords. Which meant that reading about an author who quit her (admittedly misfitted) job without a more serious plan to follow up on her first novel than to let inspiration strike, led to quite a few facepalm and headdesk moments for me. Being a writer has its own list of pros and cons–as do all careers–and ignoring the aspects that are inconvenient or hard is a sure path to being stymied and stuck–and broke.

My Hotel Paranormal cohorts certainly aren’t in that camp. Siren’s Curse came out last week, and I finally got a chance to read Unveiled. I’m really enjoying the way these authors are playing with ancient legends, bringing them forward into modern times with some unexpected twists. My own crypto-historical story as a follow-on to my Red Slaves trilogy should fit right in. And The Hotel is a fabulous character in its own right.

As for my fitness goals, all our other activities have meant we didn’t walk quite as much as last week. My phone says the places I took it with me amounted to an average of 3,807 steps per day. Not quite two miles a day. Not bad, but definitely room for improvement. I’m grateful that Spa World exists, nonetheless, to help get my head in the proper framework for being productive for another week–regardless of how many or few steps I’ve taken. If I can sweat in a sauna, that’s almost as good as sweating on a walk, right?

For as many hard knocks I’ve endured this round, I’m happy to have met at least one of my big goals. I’ll be back again next week to continue reporting on my ongoing progress. My ROW80 group is moving to Facebook starting next round, so there won’t be any more links to those group members’ posts, but for writers looking for a community of supportive authors, this is a good one.