Progress made; progress lost

I've been silently brooding the past few days because I'm an artist. I had saved often, made sure to keep my life work saved. It still didn't save me. Over a thousand words gone because of a corrupt file. It could have been worse, but it's always heartbreaking to loose progress. This isn't the first time I have either. Some of my best scenes are lost to the harsh attunement of my temperamental laptop. Perhaps once I have Wi-Fi again I can return to backing things up on google.

Writers and day jobs

I was chatting with one of my writing friends and found out that as of a few days ago, he quit his day job and is writing full time. I got oddly excited at the thought, even though I have no plans of quitting my day job. I asked how long it took him to get there.

"10 years I've been writing." He answered.

I could feel my heart break.

As someone who has only recently come to the conclusion that writing is my thing, I knew it wouldn't happen overnight. On the other hand, I didn't realize that it would take so long either.

As of today I've been published for about 3 years now, and honestly even with all the progress that I have made, I don't feel like I am anywhere near where I should be.

My heart breaks again.

The numbers hurt, I won't lie. The months with .35 cent paychecks from book sales, hurts.

I keep going though. I do it for myself. For my readers. I do it for the LGBTQ persons who have not found their comfort yet.

I will write on.
I will continue my journey.

Another late night. NaNoWriMo 2016

Day 14!

Wow, two full weeks into this mess and I am still going strong. I actually did get my personal goal of 2,000+ words in for the day. It's a good feeling. I'm still so happy that I chose to do this again this year.

If you arn't with me, or are even behind, that's okay!!! Do those extra 100 words today! Take 10 minutes and do a word sprint. Let me know your numbers! I can't wait to see.

NaNoWriMo 2016 Day 12

     Wow, these past twelve days have just flown by. I also can't believe that I broke over 20,000 words today total. 21,000+ words, in 12 days. That alone is crazy. I am happy that my writing has finally gotten back on track at least. It gives me hope.

     This year wasn't just about writing a novel. At least not for me. After my fail at this event last year I was ready to throw in the towel with writing. I told myself that I couldn't do it, and that I wasn't good at it. I didn't however, just give up. My lovely partner told me to take some time off of work and focus on what I wanted to do with my life. My heart told me that I wanted to write. So I did. This past year I have published six (6) books. That is another amazing number. I can't help but to be proud of myself.

     I did of course find fault in my own work. The things that I did publish were short and it was hard for me to actually work on them. I would get some inspiration and do good for maybe a day or two, then I would fizzle out. Lesson Learned (part one) was actually all written in one night, well at least the rough draft was. I still didn't think that I could make this passion of mine a hobby.

     NaNoWriMo this year was a chance. One of my personal last chances. I wanted to use this year not only to write a story I have been working on for more than six years. It was a chance to get myself into a daily writing habit. My own personal goal was to write 2,000 words a day. I haven't quite done that, but I can say that I have written every single day this month so far. I even did some words on the most stressful day (election day). It wasn't a lot, but it was progress.

     I am now here, my average at roughly 1,700 and some odd words a day. On top of working full time. I am beyond proud of myself and am finally giving myself permission to pursue this as more than just a hobby. This just goes to show you, that if you want to write, you will. Nothing can stop the stories.

     Get that word count in. Every. Single. Day. Even if it's just 10 words, do it.

Dealing with personal feelings

     Title says it all, this post will be a bit short and very personal. As hopefully all of you know I did recently release my first fantasy genre novel, and I was hoping it would do well. I figured sense it isn't such touchy subject (porn for a simple word) that it would bring in a wider group of people. It let me down. I'm not sure why I expect so much from myself, or my books, and I don't know what I'm "doing wrong". I don't know what I really expected, just thought that if I tried hard and kept going that it would slowly get better. My numbers dropped with this book. I know not everything I do will be great, but I always just hope that instead of one selling maybe two will.

     I don't really know what steps to take next to build my audience, maybe I should dump money into something now that I am overworking myself with "normal jobs". I just don't know what to do or where to turn to next on this, and I feel it breaking my spirit. I have all these books planned and I am so excited to write them, but yet I feel like I never will because I need to work "real jobs" and while yes I can (and will) keep writing while working 60+ hour weeks, it feels like those novels will take so much longer and my dream feels like it's fading.

     I apologize for such a depressing post, but I do feel like others need to see they are not alone in their feelings. This happens. It sucks, but it does happen. You can either let the feelings win, or keep writing. I know that I will keep writing.