Workshop Wednesday - Tick Tock

From my Instagram post earlier today:

"One of the things I find most frustrating about being an author is the time required to write, edit, polish, and publish a book. I've been talking about Dragon Slayer for a year! And though every day I'm closer to its release, I often feel mired in quicksand. I feel actively guilty each time I post a teaser, because it's just that - a teaser. I've spent a year telling readers "this is gonna be awesome, just wait!" And amidst all the creative worries of writing, there's also this deep, personal frustration that I'm not working fast enough. A genuinely silly frustration, because I never feel impatient toward my favorite authors. Books take time, and I would never rush them...though I struggle not to rush myself. There's that sense of spinning your wheels, feeling like you're the only one, in the vast world of fiction authors, not accomplishing anything. An unfounded feeling: Dragon Slayer is 800 freaking pages, and I did that! But our own brains sabotage us in insidious little ways. I'll put this book out some day...she says for the hundredth time. Books, like wizards, are neither early nor late; they arrive precisely when they mean to."

I thought I might expand on that here, for a moment. 

Writing is, for the most part, a solitary art. We do our research, we piece together our notes and outlines, and we sit down at our computers and type. It can be lonely, at times, but for me, as an introvert, the quiet is a welcome and inspirational atmosphere; I do my best work when I'm totally alone - save the dog - without any outside distractions. Put on a book playlist, open Pinterest in the browser for some aesthetic images, and off I go. But being an author means plugging into social media on a daily basis to get your work out there. And that's when you start to feel, perhaps, inadequate. You see other authors talking about their new releases, posting their daily word counts, and you think, man, I'm slow. I just don't measure up. 

This is a natural, human thought, but it's such a harmful one, I've learned over time. Because no two authors are the same person (unless we're talking about those scammer folks who aren't even authors at all), and no two authors are writing the same books (again, except for those scammers). Different brains work in different ways. Different writers have different real-life obligations, and different novels require different approaches. 

We judge ourselves, though. In my case, too harshly. 

In 2016, I released five books. I still can't believe that happened. Two of the five had been written in the previous year, and merely published in 2016. But still. Five. Those books were Snow In Texas, Secondhand Smoke, Tastes Like Candy, Loverboy, and Walking Wounded. WW came out in December, and then I promptly caught pneumonia and was bedridden for two  months, and sick for six. 

Being sick like that. Being useless, needing my mom and brother to take care of my horses and dog for me; something as small as making myself breakfast serving as a daily triumph...that crushed me. I've never been in the best of health, but manage to muddle through; that winter, though, not being able to write - that sent me into a deep depression. I felt worthless. If I couldn't write, then I couldn't make money, and then what good was I? What purpose did I serve? 

I know that this was a really, really unhealthy way of looking at myself. I'm self-critical, it's what I do; it's why I always use a face filter on Instagram. But that was a low point. And I couldn't seem to regain my former productivity. 

I realized something, though; five releases is breakneck. Five releases in a year is crazy. In the (often dishonest) narrative of indie publishing, rapid releases are seen not only as normal, but necessary. It's an erroneous assumption that's been pushed forward by paid readers who have a financial interest in supporting a particular kind of indie author. It's gross. It's unrealistic. It has authors thinking they don't have time to properly develop a book's plot and characters; the demand for quantity has never been higher...and that of course drives down the quality of the product being offered. 

I'll admit to falling into the trap for a little while there. Thinking that I had to keep cranking out book after book if I wanted to stay relevant. Who knows; maybe I do. But take my urge to write all the things, and layer on the social media pressure of being an indie, and suddenly I was crushed beneath a weight of someone else's making. 

It causes me daily worry, but I've kept to a strict mindset while editing Dragon Slayer. This is your dream, I've told myself. This series, these characters, these books. Don't you dare rush that and mess it up, just because of the outside pressure. And can I say, here, that I appreciate so much that my readers have been encouraging and patient and cheered me on? I have the best readers, and I love you guys. 

And I would say this to any other indie who might be reading this, who's feeling the way that I've felt: Those hurry-up authors? The ones with book after book after book? Either they're going to burn out, or they were nothing but a ghost-writing collective to start with. They aren't going to stand the test of time. This business is full of ups and downs, good days and bad. But you can't fake passion. And there's no substitute for careful time taken. If your book needs a little longer to marinate, then take that time. Writing is a slow, lonely thing; revel in it.