Honestly, I’m not that great at dealing with distractions in my life. When I have a writing habit going, you would think it would be easier. Particularly since I’m loving the book I’m currently writing. (Have I mentioned how much fun this cultivator book is? I’m constantly giggling while coming up with new silliness. There are some serious moments, but mostly, it’s just fun.)
This morning, even the new!shiny! book isn’t enough.
What do I have that’s distracting? Some fun things, like the end of the Water Witch Mysteries Kickstarter. Won’t reach the fourth stretch goal, but that’s okay. Will still make money and gain new fans, so that’s worth it.
I am advertising the newly released book, A Dragon’s Guide to Killing Gods (And Other Lies) this week, so I had to go check sales numbers this morning. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to do a marketing push for a newly released book
This has not been going as well as I’d planned. *le sigh* Some of the things I’d wanted to do I didn’t have time to get around to. In addition, some of the things that I’d already put into place haven’t executed as expected.
The good news is that I’ve been running a Facebook ad on the book all week, and that’s returned good results. Not stellar—the book is only $0.99 for the next month. I need to sell a tremendous amount of copies to make back the money I’ve spent in advertising, not to mention cover, editing, and so on.
What I’m hoping, though, is that this book will act as a gateway and that I’ll gain more readers overall. That’s the goal, to get more readers consistently buy my books, not necessarily to make it “big” with a single book.
The biggest focus stealer this morning, however, is the prep that I have to do for the colonoscopy tomorrow.
Normally, I wouldn’t talk about such things. That’s kind of private health stuff that y’all don’t need to hear about.
But.
I still remember Jay Lake. I still remember the horrific battle he had with colon cancer. There are quite a few writers I know who now regularly go and get colonoscopies, specifically for Jay. I am one of them.
So please, if you’re at the age when you should start getting a colonoscopy, go schedule it NOW. It isn’t pleasant. Believe me, I’m living through that right now. But it’s important.
(ETA—the first colonoscopy I had done, ten years ago, they found a couple of pre-cancerous nodes. The second time, they found just one of those. This time, they only found a single node and it was benign. Yay!)
There have been times when I’ve pushed myself to write. Sometimes, that’s the right thing to do. I tell myself that I just need to get my word count in. (The lowest limit of my word count, not the upper limit)
That’s for days when I’m not having a great cognition day. I still get those, even with the change of diet. The thing is, instead of getting them every third day or every other day, I’m getting them once every other week, or sometimes more.
There’s a world of difference between those two intervals. And at this point, even if I have a day when I’m not fully cognoscente, caffeine helps. (I’m only doing caffeine medicinally at this point, not habitually.)
I’ve also pushed myself to write on days like today when I’m mightily distracted by other things.
I’ve learned that pushing on days like today is usually harmful, not helpful. I end up resenting the writing, which is never, ever good.
If I’m really feeling guilty about not writing because I’m merely distracted by things, the least I can do is to write an essay. Even a rambling, only vaguely cohesive essay.
Like this one.
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