A Long and Wandering Post

I wrote this post and Tuesday's posts on Sunday morning, and then I DID something.  Starting with boxing up the negative voices and shoving them in a corner.  Still, I thought I should leave this post as a reminder to others not to give up.

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It's early Sunday morning and the house is quiet, other than the cat snoring and my computer humming.  Hubs went back to bed a while ago.  Me?  I'm just sitting here in front of the computer, trying to convince myself to write something.  Or edit something.  Or DO something.  Anything.

Earlier, I saw on Facebook what I think was the breakdown of a human being.  When I first got on, I saw a long post that basically amounted to 'I hate myself and everything I've ever done and I'm so so sorry to anyone I may have hurt'. Then as I scrolled through my feed, I saw he'd made post after post of really depressing-ass songs.  Not a writer.  Just a dude who had sent me a friend request a month or so ago, who has until now seemed like a really cool and stable individual.  At first, I thought he'd been hacked, but the songs...  Well, after a bit, I decided that perhaps it was him after all.  Which is really depressing.

But I get it.  Been there, done that.  Listened to the same songs.

Anyway, it all got me to thinking.  And sitting here staring at my computer trying to force myself to DO something, lest I write a similar post of my own and thrown down a cavalcade of similarly depressing-ass songs.

You know, I think the songs actually make things worse.  Scratch that.  I know they make things worse.  For godsakes, do not listen to Counting Crows.  If you aren't depressed when you start, you will be by the time you're done.  Suck the joy right out of you, they will.  I used to wrap myself up in them, thinking they knew how I was feeling, but in the end, it turned out they were actually feeding my depression rather than empathizing with it.  And once I realized that, I got those damn CDs right the hell out of my life.

Now, when I'm feeling blue, I put on my HAPPY mix and try to use that to lift myself out of it.  Or I listen to Rachmaninoff.  Hard to feel down listening to that.

My problem right now isn't so much that life is getting me down, it's that I don't feel like a writer.  I don't feel like I even know how to write anymore.  Not fiction anyway.  I feel like when I sit down and start typing, all I'll produce is crap.  I feel like the whole beginning of Cinder Ugly needs to be scrapped and I don't have the first idea on how to start it over.  And I have no clue how to start anything else.  It's all "'Crap?  We love crap.  Crap crap crap.  Crap crap.  Crap.  Crap"*.

Yeah, I know... I'm the first one to tell you 'give yourself permission to write crap'.  'It's all fixable.'  'You can't fix a blank page.'  Somehow that advice isn't helping today... err, for the past few months.  The caveat to that advice, one I didn't realize was there until now, is that it's okay to write crap as long as you have some hope it'll be fixable later.  And I don't have any faith this crap will be fixable.  It's not fertilizer from which a rose will grow.  It's toxic sludge from which nothing will ever grow.

Yes, I know what I have already written is not crap.  It's what's coming out of my hands now that's crap.  Or, at least, that's the thinking that's got me stuck.

Not sure how I'll muddle through this.  I will.  I think the first thing I need to do is kick all the negative voices out of my head.  Or at least shove them all into a big box and then shove the box into a corner where I can ignore it.  I'm working on it at least.  I haven't given up.  Nor will I.

The FB guy?  I hope his outpouring of depression yesterday helps get his mind right.  Sometimes you've got to pour it all out so you can fill up with something better.  And sometimes, if you let it, it just fills up with more of the same.  I really hope he finds some good and positive things to fill up on. 

And now, finally, there's the first glimmerings of sunrise.  A new day.  Let's make this a good one, eh?  Let's DO something. 

* Norman Fell in the movie 'Transylvania 6-5000'. 

I Also Write Books

Monday I was checking out at the Wallyworld and chatting with the cashier as I often do, when she says something to the effect of 'that's exactly how I dress on my day off'. 

First off, let's be clear.  I wear sweatpants to the Wallyworld.  I wear sweatpants everywhere for the most part.  Unless it's summer, then I'm wearing shorts.  It's this writer's standard uniform.  I'm all about comfort, baby. 

But this isn't a post about the uniform...

I told the woman it wasn't my day off and that I work from home.  And that, in fact, I had work to do as soon as I got home.  When she asked what I did, I told her...

spreadsheets.

And then as an afterthought, I told her I also write books.

She got a little excited then, so I rummaged in my purse for a bookmark to hand her.  Did the softshoe over the genres I write and encouraged her to check out my work.  On the drive home, I thought about all the things I could've told her about my books and my writing.  Sure, I didn't have much time because by then she was done ringing up my stuff and someone was behind me in line.  But I could've done more.

And then my brain went to the fact that when asked what I do for a living, my first answer was spreadsheets.  Yeah, well, spreadsheets does pay better.  And right now, I'm devoting more time to working spreadsheets than I am to working on anything even remotely writerly.

In fact, I spend more time whining about not writing than anything remotely writerly.  Gotta be loads of fun for my readers.  Sorry about that, folks.  But it is what it is.  Right now, I do spreadsheets.  And I also write books. 

Or I wrote books.  And I will again, if I ever manage to pull my head out of my as... armpit.

Writerly Depression

Always on the lookout for ways to boost sales, I read Amazon Decoded by David Gaughran this week.  If you're not familiar with Gaughran, he also wrote Let's Get Digital and Let's Get Visible - two books that were instrumental in my self-publishing decisions early on. 

Now, you can only get Amazon Decoded if you subscribe to his newsletter, but the newsletter is chock full of useful into, so it's a good idea anyway.  Plus you get this book.  I reviewed it on Goodreads.  If you're interested in that, you can see the review over there or you can wait and see it on my Reading Update over on The Writing Spectacle tomorrow.

It's a good book.  It was also depressing as hell for me.  Because I am not anywhere near where I want to be.  He's talking about sales way above anything I've ever gotten.  And ranks I don't know if I will ever hit.  And he's talking about them as if they were old hat.  Not for me, man. 

He's also talking about ads I am not in a position to pay for.  I mean, you gotta spend money to make money.  But you gotta HAVE money to spend money to make money.  Know what I mean?

I don't even want to think about how many spreadsheets I have to do to scrape together $500 for an ad.  One ad.  That may or may not pay for itself?  Ugh.  Not happening any time soon.

Still, the book gave me some ideas.  I'll give them a try and see how things go.  Maybe I'll be better prepared with Unequal launches in... well, whenever it launches later this year. 

I do have an ad going live today with Authors' Billboard.  I have low expectations.  But it's a $6 ad, so maybe I can break even.  Fingers crossed.

On a side note, I saw an author complaining that they only got 50 sales on launch day for their new book.  I kinda hated them a little right then.  Then I hated myself a little because I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  What can I say, it's been a week for the writerly depression to rear its ugly head.  Which is why I've been spending a lot of time in the gardens instead of at the keyboard.