Indie Life: Disruptions

Last month, if you visited my blog on the second Wednesday of the month, you read a lovely post about my favorite knitwear designer. Not a post about indie life.  I had every intention to write a post, but I couldn’t.

I had a migraine.

I have suffered from migraines since I was a teenager. I used to have about one a month but lately I’m having two to three a week. Depending on their severity, they are debilitating and I can’t do anything but lay in the dark and pray for my meds to kick in quickly.

My migraines are a huge disruption to my life and I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve had to completely change my plans because of them. Like my post last month. Most times I don’t know when I’ll have one or how long they’ll last.

That makes planning difficult. Difficult but not impossible. I can plan, but I have to have an emergency migraine backup plan. I have a back-up plan if I have a migraine and for when I have to take my prescription migraine medication (which is quite lovely in dealing with the discomfort but knocks me out for 8-12 hours).

Last month highlighted the fact that life is full of disruptions. Maybe not migraines, but everyone has unforeseen issues arise in life. A sick child. Storm-related power outages. Broken vehicles. Computer problems.

With my migraines, I have found that the best way to minimize the disruptions of life is to be proactive. I avoid my triggers. When I know I’ll be unavoidably exposed to one of my triggers, I’ll pre-medicate. I try and keep chocolate on me (the caffeine helps) and I’m finding that it’s helpful to keep sunglasses around.

Being proactive also translates well into your writing life. Here are some tips to be more proactive:

Build in extra time on goals and deadlines. Plan to take longer than anticipated to finish a project. Since my migraines normally knock me out for a day or two a week, I only count three days of a week going towards working on my goal. Pad your goals so if you do have a life disruption, you won’t fall to far behind.

Do write more on your “good” days. We all know that flow that comes when we’re in the zone. When you’re there, keep going. Maybe you can write 2000 words instead of your daily goal of 1000. Maybe you can work out the next point on your plotline. That will give you an excess towards you goal.

Use scheduling tools. Every blog has the ability to schedule posts in advance. Hoot Suite allows you to schedule your tweets. Take advantage of these tools. It may save you for not having your indie life post ready (sad face).

Invest in voice recognition software. This is something that I sorely wish I could master. Most times I’m still awake and mostly alert during my migraines and can still talk. I could still talk/write during those times. And think of all the other uses for it. Someone might think you’re a little weird sitting in your car talking to yourself during your child’s baseball game or while you wait for your prescriptions, but we’re indie authors. We’re used to being a little weird.

How are you proactive in minimizing life’s distractions? What tools have you found useful?

Indie Life: Meaningful

I have good news and bad news. Being the optimist I am, I’ll start with the good news.

This month, I got two four star reviews of my novel on Christian Manifesto. I also got good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. The biggest piece of good news of all? My novel is a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Yes, I screamed when I found out.

The bad news…I haven’t sold one copy of my book this month. Not a single one.

So there is my stark honesty. My sales haven’t been great before this month, but I must admit, I haven’t been promoting my novel as I should. My marketing has been sidetracked by a series of bad migraines. I’ve had to stay away from my computer quite a bit. This month, however, the few sales I was getting dried up.

Now you may be thinking, good reviews and promising contest results should mean something. I was thinking the same thing. I thought they would mean more sales, but they don’t. That’s one of the challenges of indie life. You find yourself wondering what it all means. How do you interpret the ups and downs?

I think the best way to deal with all this is to remember that this is a journey and in every journey there is good and bad. The bad does cancel out the good. Nor does the good cancel out the bad. They co-exist in indie life and every other part of life.

It’s also helpful to remember that bad occurrences don’t make the journey bad and good occurrences don’t make the journey perfect. A balanced perspective is the key. This journey will have good and bad in it. We want it that way. When good and bad co-exist, we can use a better word for our indie publishing journey: meaningful.

Despite my lack of sales, my journey is meaningful. I had courage to believe in my writing. That’s meaningful. I’ve dealt with the myth that sales and good reviews validate my writing career. That’s meaningful. I’ve celebrated that my writing connects with my fans. All meaningful.

Regardless what my sales end up being, I’ve had a meaningful month. 

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My Life in Stitches: She's On Fire!

Last week, I posted about my lovely little Verdant. I raved about how much I enjoyed knitting it. It rightfully earned its place as my favorite project. Unfortunately, it held that spot for a short while. I seem to be on fire with picking great projects.

Love this sweater!

Last week was odd for me. I got a sinus infection with debilitating headaches. I slept most of the week and the pain from the headaches made it hard to concentrate (the migraine I got last Thursday didn’t help, either). I couldn’t read. I tried watching TV but found that too mentally tasking. What I needed was something super-mindless. And what could be more mindless that stockinette in the round? My husband caked my yarn for me and I casted on $5 in Paris by Anna Peck. Boy, I’m glad I did.

First of all, it did meet my requirement for mindless knitting. It was simple and easy.  I’ve had a sweater-phobia for a long time, and this project went a long way to ease my fears. But more than it being mindless knitting, it’s a really great pattern. I love the fit, the look and the color (I used Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd's Wool Worsted). I love everything about it.

I also love the fact that I could make adjustments as I went to insure a perfect fit. Don’t have to worry about my teenage daughter stealing this one. It would look frumpy on her since I’m a little curvier than she is. I had no problems understanding the increases and decreases even with a pounding headache, which earns this pattern more cool points.

This pattern looked so great on me that it inspired my husband to start a sweater project of his own (but no sweater-phobia for him. This is his fourth sweater). He’s working on Cloudy Sunday by Hilary Smith Callis. It’s nice, but it’s not as fitted as mine. I certainly want to make a striped version of $5 in Paris.

My $5 in Paris is now my favorite pattern. We’ll see how long it stays at the top.