You might have noticed that my second book came out to weeks ago. It’s a very big accomplishment for me and I have been shouting about it from the rooftops and across my social media for all to hear. The hustle has been real the last few months as Burning Bright’s Pub Day drew near. Lining up interviews and reviews, ordering book swag, and generally begging everyone I know to buy a copy and spread the news. It’s a full time job for an unknown writer to break into the business and build a readership even for someone lucky enough to have a wonderful agent and publisher like I do. But here’s the quandary for every writer, musician, artist or producer of marketable goods: not only must you create the goods, you must sell them while you continue to create more. Hustle and flow. Too much time spent selling your goods (hustle) and you threaten your creativity (flow). Too much flow without any hustle and you will not sell anything.
This is the balancing act I am trying to master at the moment. There is always something I feel I could be doing to market my book and the pressure of that is constant. But there is a danger of getting too wrapped up in selling books because then I don’t make time to write. And for me, writing takes a lot of time. I need space to percolate on my plot and characters and the freedom to let the story develop as I write. The pressure to market my second book has seriously been cramping my writing style as I work on the final book in my trilogy. Not to mention being a mom, a wife running a household and taking care of our persnickety dachshund.
It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that writing books is hard. But there’s also something magical about it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi christened that magical experience the flow:a state of deep focus and creativity people reach when they are so immersed in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. I’ve reached that state of flow many times when I’ve been fully immersed in my writing. I can get so utterly focused on my story that it just seems to come together while I’m in this state of flow.
I have recently realized that my hustle to sell my books is disrupting my flow. It is keeping me from immersing myself in the story and stifling my writing.
So what’s a writer to do?
I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of days and I made a decision: I’m taking things back to basics. I’m getting back on a solid schedule for writing with a set date to finish my first draft. I’ve become very relaxed with my writing schedule lately and while it’s been fun, it’s no longer serving me. So I’m going back to a more regimented schedule of writing knowing that the finished book will be worth the struggle.
Happy Tuesday.💕