Indelibles: Living the Life

One of the laments I often hear when people are considering going indie is that the author has to do everything themselves. Not exactly an accurate statement since there are many tasks that an indie author has to outsource but I understand their meaning. The author is responsible for the whole shebang. You have to make the plan and execute it.

Of course, that can seem a little daunting but how hard is it really? It’s not really that hard…it’s no harder than life. Not to minimize the challenges of indie publishing or life in general, but if you manage to live, you can manage an indie publishing career.

Everyday, we make plans and decisions. We plan our careers and to go back to school despite having a full time job. We plan to homeschool our children. Some of us plan weeklong vacations…vacations that include children. Others plan the most effective way to live in the Sandwich Generation, caring for both elderly parents and children. We do all this and then carry out the plan. And if we don’t know what to do, we do the research and find out.

Becoming an indie author is pretty much the same thing. Yes, we are making different kinds of plans, but it’s the same principal. We decide what’s best for us, we make a plan and we carry it out. If there is something we don’t know, we do research and figure it out. Or we figure out that we can’t figure it out and find someone who already has. This is life, indie life, but life nonetheless.

So for those who are planning to become an indie author, or those of us who are already on that journey, just keep living life. Indie life can be a tremendous undertaking, but so is life.

A Year in 300,000 Words

New Years resolutions are tricky things. Some years, I’m all excited about making them and some years I don’t make them at all. Despite how I feel about them, there is something very attractive about making resolutions. I think it’s the lure of a clean slate. An opportunity to start fresh and leave some things in the past.

This year, I’ve decided to make resolutions concerning my writing career. I started off making them like I always had, but then I read a very interesting article from Randy Ingermanson that changed my perspective. In the article Organizing: Goals vs. Targets, Ingermanson gives a better way of approaching resolutions. He suggests that resolutions should be labeled as targets and goals. Goals are something we have control over and targets are things we have no control over, but would like to happen in 2013 (read the full article here).

Using his example, completing three novels this year is my goal. Getting a publishing contract is a target. This way of labeling resolutions makes so much more sense to me. It also keeps me from stressing about the things I can’t control and focus on the things I can.

I have made several goals for other areas of my life (come back Friday and read about my knitting goals). For my writing life, I’ve decided that I’m going to write 300,000 words this year. That’s a little over 950 words a day. This includes novels, short stories, articles and blogs. You can follow my progress with the word counter to the right.

I like this approach better because I know I won’t write 950 words some days, but I also know that I will write way more than 950 on other days. I also think this will work better with my bio-rhythms.

So let the adventure begin. And thanks for reading my first 315 words of the year.