I had trouble figuring out which project to work on after work tonight, so I made a list of what I need to get done this week…..and I have paralyzed myself with the sheer amount of work I have to get done!
It feels like I got run over by a freight train, and I have no clue where to start. There’s the draft of Fed by the Fae that needs to be finished ASAP, the line edits for Pact with the Pack that need to be done, the recording to do tomorrow for the GoIndieNow channel, the takeover of the Askew Ever After social media outlets this Saturday, the second, LIVE GoIndieNow stream Sunday, and, oh, yeah, my freaking day job…which has an added meeting this week that I’m dreading.
The day job stuff, at least, I can’t do outside of work, so there’s that. But where to begin on all the other stuff??? I have to get at least 471 words a day written on Fed by the Fae through the end of the month to make my latest deadline; the line edits should be quick, but they require more concentration than I have in me right now; I have to prepare for the discussion on the recording tomorrow; I need to make up graphics and think up things to share/do for the takeover; and I’m sure there’s something I should be doing for the live stream, but my fried brain can’t think of what.
I don’t know when life got so overwhelming, but it took me off-guard. So much to do in so little time, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda freaking out about it a little bit.
The little daydreamer corner of my brain wishes the writing-marketing-promotion stuff was all I had to worry about. Even when I’m at the day job, all the little writing-related things I have to do are bubbling in the back of my brain, nagging at me.
Too bad I suck at selling books. If I could just sell enough to make a semi-decent income, I could drop to part time. Or quit. But that’s a pipe dream of epic proportions, one that’s completely out of reach.
In times like these, despair hovers just below the surface. Am I destined to be less-than-mediocre? Will I ever find my footing?
I don’t doubt my writing ability; that’s solid. It’s the business side of it that scares the shit out of me, and that’s the side that I can’t afford to get help with. I can barely afford the bare bones things. I used birthday money to get business cards printed and to get some stickers made as promotional materials. I used some of it to send out giveaway prizes that I hadn’t set aside shipping money for yet. I should have used more of that money to set up ads in various places, but aside from a couple small Facebook ads, I’ve never done that, and the thought of it is daunting. So I ordered a lighter with my logo on it instead. Because damnit, it was my birthday money. I wanted to get something for me with it somewhere along the line.
(I mean, c’mon…with a tagline like “Words that ignite,” why wouldn’t I want a custom lighter?)
Of course, there’s also the two list-aiming box sets I’m in. The heat is rising on both of them as one nears release and the other struggles to gain ground. I had been hopeful that I would be able to get that coveted “USA Today Bestselling Author” title with one or both of these, but that feels like it’s slipping through my fingertips.
“Failure” might be too strong a word for how I feel about my writing career, but it’s inching closer and closer to that.
Maybe it’s partly Coronapocalypse. Maybe this whole pandemic insanity has just fucked the economy that bad. Maybe it’ll pick back up after a vaccine is found and the cases start dropping–or maybe it won’t. Maybe I’m destined to stay in my dead-end job, with no hope of advancement and less hope of escape.
Should I add “search Indeed for something else” to my ever-growing list of “shit I gotta get done”? I don’t know. All I know is this: the one thing I really want to do, the on thing I had a taste of during my quarantine, isn’t enough to sustain me. It’s not enough to get me where I need to be, and that means slaving away, hating myself a little more each weekday, taking more anti-anxiety meds just to make it through the days, trudging in to the office and counting the hours/minutes/seconds until I can clock out and go the fuck home.
Well, this post has rambled on to a worse train wreck than the GIF I posted at the start of it! I’m glad I have this informal writing outlet to counterbalance the more structured creative writing projects I’ve got going on. Maybe I need to use this outlet more often!
It’s dinner time, anyway. Then some TV to unwind. Then time to crash like the proverbial freight trains.