Writing and Editing and Promoting...Oh, My!

 It's time again. In between writing and editing gigs, I'm also working on promotion for the first Weaver Sisters novel, Home the River's Edge, which releases in about three weeks. (See what I did there? Put in a link to the book-- clearly, I'm already in promotion mode.) Promotion can become all-consuming--ask any author, and most every one will tell you it's not their favorite part of writing a novel. Some authors are great at it and sail through the whole "Look at me!" thing smiling and waving like the queen in a parade. 

Others, like me and many of my writer friends, cringe a little and go to reviewers and book bloggers for attention, hat in hand, shuffling our feet and staring at the ground, hoping they'll accept an ARC and share it with their followers and readers. Either way, promotion is hard work. So is writing...

Someone once asked me to share something I learned since becoming a writer. The list is endless, but the main thing right off the top of my head, is writing is hard work. Anyone who tells you different is either lying or not a writer. It doesn't matter whether you're writing a novel or a back cover blurb, a short story or a 500-word magazine article. Writing is hard. It requires discipline and creativity, time and research, and most of all a love of the game. If you don't love to write, if the process itself isn't an intrinsic part of who you are, writing isn't just hard, it's near impossible.

When you are a writer, the writing--both the process and the end product--fill your mind whether you are at the computer typing actual words or in the shower or driving to the grocery store. Characters talk to you and they don't much care if you're trying to listen to the sermon on Sunday morning or trying to pick out a decent steak at the meat counter, or trying to go to sleep. Nearly every writer I know keeps a notebook and pencil next to their bed because when you wake up at 2:47 a.m. with the perfect line of dialogue for your characters in your head, if you don't write it down, it'll be gone when you get up in the morning. And we can't risk that because the words, the perfect words, are precious.

Writers write--all the time. Husband will testify to countless meals where I've been physically present across the table, but mentally, in River's Edge, trying to get my characters to bend to my will or at least, understand why they want to go a different way than I had planned. Sometimes, he'll process with me, but mostly I save that for lucky Liz in our daily G-chats. Point being, the stories are always there, the people in my head are always present, clamoring for attention. 

The hardest part of all of it is trying to use my time wisely--I only have 24 hours each day and some of that time has to be spent sleeping, right? At times like this, when I've got more balls in the air than I can actually juggle, I wonder if maybe it's time to stop... but stop what? Not writing! Writer Anne Stuart once said "Everything in my life is filtered through my writing. There is no me without it." When you are a writer, it isn't what you do, it's who you are.

And I'm not ready yet to give up the editing gigs--not only do I still feel the need to earn money for our household, but I love editing. The whole fixing things for other writers is my jam.

Promotion... well, I can't give that up either because writing books and putting them out there for the world to see means you do promotion. I'm luckier than most--I have the amazing team at Tule Publishing behind me and they are promo gurus. I'm grateful every day for their guidance and expertise in marketing. I've done it both ways (indie and traditional), and at this point in my career, I can't imagine this publishing journey without them.

Bottom line, I'll just take each day as it comes...write in the mornings, edit in the afternoons, handle some promo stuff as it comes along, and let evenings and weekends be my time with Husband and family. Sometimes one thing spills over into another--of course, they do. That's life... But I can do this. I just have to remember to breathe... 

Take care, mes amies, enjoy spring as it's springing wherever you are, and remember to breathe,