Working, Writing, Shilling, And Staying Sane

A little info about me. I work a full time job as a preventative maintenance coordinator for an HVAC company. It's a great job, I get paid pretty well and get a full forty every week. I'm also engaged to a beautiful young woman and we have a home and puppy together. These two things alone take up a great deal of my time and energy. On top of that I'm doing my darnedest to shill my book(s), write more books, go to school, look for better career prospects, maintain a healthy social life, and progress myself on a spiritual level. With all that swirling around in my mind it can feel a little overwhelming at times and I'd like to talk about that in this blog. To encourage others to do as I'm doing if they really are passionate about something, as I am with my stories.

(I'd like to preface this by saying yes, I know there are others with a much greater load than myself who are just fine. I also know plenty with a far lighter load who are falling apart.)

Passion!

First, make sure that what you're doing is what you want to be doing. If you don't want to write, it's going to be far harder to pump out the pages than if you were genuinely passionate about writing. Passion can grow and it can wane, though, and something you were previously extremely passionate about can lose its flame in time. Make sure to take your share of breaks, ease off the gas and lighten your workload if you're not feeling it. I try to write 500-1k words a day, whether it's on a short story or on my flagship series of novels, but I do try to stay active. I'll go for a week or two where I can't bare to write more than a page, and then other days where I can't stop typing and then look up to find it's two am on a work-night and I have to be up in three hours. Keep riding the waves of inspiration and passion to their fullest while keeping your end goal within view.

Time Management

Manage your time effectively. Don't be one of those people who spends 5hrs a day just watching TV and then complain that you didn't get anything done on your book/drawings/woodwork/whatever it is you're working on. I know some days you get home from a long day and just want to veg out on the couch for the rest of the evening, but that's not how you're going to get anything done. Make sure that you do at least a little bit of something productive before you chill.

If you're doing something like writing or drawing that can be done with minimal tools, see when you can fit in a little bit of that activity between your usual activities. For instance, I work with a computer most days and can access my Google Drive from it. During lunch breaks or during the cooldown after the day, I'll try to write out a few pages, just so I'm getting in my daily practice.

I also like to keep moving after a day. It's a lot easier to keep your momentum after a day of work if you don't sit down and relax before getting to whatever it is you want to do. If I go home and sit down on the couch, you can bet your buns that I won't want to get up again. Instead, I'll go home and take a shower then immediately jump into whatever it is I need to do. If that means finishing up a chapter or fixing the porch, I make sure that I've still got my momentum from the day to keep plugging along instead of taking a break in between.

Stay Motivated

This one is a bit more subjective and depends on the person. For me, staying motivated is a serious challenge and I will become discouraged if I don't see tangible advancement. For ME, I like to set little goals and milestones I'd like to reach. Once I meet that goal, I check it off of my list and get a little confidence boost. I love hitting little achievements (And that's probably why video games appeal to me so much) and making my own helps me stay on track.

Some of the milestones I like to set are: Finishing a chapter or more inside of a week, keeping on my daily writing goals, finishing a short story within a given time period, and hitting wordcount milestones in my books. Then I'll give myself a little reward. A candy bar, one of those fancy chocolatey coffees, that game I've had my eye on for a while, just little things that I can say "I earned this" while enjoying. (If you go this route, make sure you don't overdo the rewards. Make them challenging enough to reach that it really feels like an accomplishment.)

Keep Shilling

Keep pushing your work if your goal is to go professional! This applies heavily to indy authors and artists who want people to buy their work. Make sure to maintain your presence online, get into the communities, and keep pushing to sell more! You have to be persistent if you want to be successful. Look at @Aragmar, author of the Starshatter sci-fi series, as an example. He pushes nonstop and gets his name out there as much as he can and he's been rewarded for it, gaining a commendable level of success as an indy author and is still growing.

This subject kind of ties into the time management aspect of the game, here. It takes more time to shill properly and to genuinely engage. To write blogs, talk to people, interact with others, and stay in the spotlight. Make sure you're making a little time daily to keep updated on your chosen social medias. This is something I really need to work on. I'm mostly active on Minds and have been slacking in the other forums of the internet, something I hope to remedy in the near future.

TL;DR : Ride the waves of inspiration and motivation as they come, keep moving forward, set small goals, don't waste (a lot of) time, and keep shilling your work.

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day.