This past Wednesday was the 11-year anniversary of this blog/site, which is kind of crazy to think about. I definitely had no idea what I was doing back then (not that I have much of a better idea now), and while there have been times when I was only posting here sporadically, I do love having this record of my writing journey. I’ve met so many great people along the way, which I’m thankful for, but these anniversaries also remind me how some of my fellow writers who I respected and admired decided this wasn’t for them and decided to leave writing with the goal of publication behind. It’s tough. It really is.
Despite me doing this for over a decade now (which, like I said: CRAZY), I wouldn’t say I started gaining much traction until about late 2019 or so. That was when I started reaching my pre-childrearing levels of momentum and had a slightly better idea of how to market my books to readers who were looking for the specific genres I was writing in. In a weird way, I think the lockdown of 2020 helped a bit, as people were reading more and I also had the time to dedicate to building more of an online presence. (Okay, Twitter. I’m talking about Twitter.)
After all this time, I’m finally coming to terms with something I’ve known deep down for many years: to be more successful, I have to produce more. Now, we can have the “quality vs. quantity” argument until we’re blue in the face, but while my backlog is pretty big at this point, I know I need to write and release faster to keep building my audience. Part of finally accepting this is how, at this stage in my life, I WANT to do it. Some of my hobbies have fallen by the wayside (I haven’t watched much TV or even touched my knitting in well over a year now), but writing is becoming my priority in my down time and I’m okay with it.
I don’t have a firm release schedule for the rest of the year yet, but I have a lot—a LOT—planned. It’s almost to the point where I’m so excited, I’m getting impatient and I have to resist the urge to publish a lot of books and stories all at once, but I’ve been doing this long enough that I can make myself be methodical about it. As always, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter and following me on social media for the latest details!