Briar WestIf you had asked me at the beginning of July what I expected the month to look like, I would have described something far more productive than what actually happened.
I had plans. Very organized, completely reasonable plans.
I was going to make serious progress on Thirteen Kinks of Halloween, start experimenting with freshies, keep up with the rest of my work, and stroll into August feeling accomplished and completely in control.
That is not exactly how it went.
Thirteen Kinks of Halloween still wasn’t finished when July ended, even though I knew I could have been much further along. All of my freshie supplies sat untouched while I found plenty of other things to do, including thinking about how I should be working on the things I was avoiding.
Very productive.
The more I paid attention to what I was doing, though, the more I realized that this wasn’t ordinary procrastination. I have been noticing a pattern in the way I respond to deadlines, especially when a book is already available for preorder.
I tell myself the public deadline will motivate me, but my anxiety hears something entirely different. Instead of helping me focus, it makes every decision feel more important than it needs to be. I care so much about getting the book right that opening the document starts to feel like a test I haven’t studied for, which leads to avoidance, guilt, and even more pressure the next time I sit down to write.
It is a frustrating cycle, and I haven’t figured out how to break it yet. Recognizing what is happening, however, gives me something more useful to work with than simply calling myself lazy and wondering why I can’t try harder.
July wasn’t only about the work I didn’t finish, either.
Finding Community Away from the Computer
Mr. West and I stepped outside our usual routine and joined two local book clubs through our local indie bookstore.
Writing can be isolating, especially when so much of my time is spent behind a computer, moving between books, business tasks, family responsibilities, and my regular job. I’ve written before about how I balance work, family, and writing without losing my mind most days, but getting out of the house and sitting around a table with people who simply wanted to talk about books reminded me that reading doesn’t have to be another solitary part of my life.
We met new people, had genuinely fun conversations, and started becoming part of a local reading community. I didn’t realize how much I needed that until we were already there.
The book clubs also convinced me to try two genres I probably wouldn’t have chosen on my own.
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer was my first horror novel. I expected the gore to be the part that stuck with me, but it was the atmosphere, the creeping dread, and the sense that the wilderness itself was watching the characters that kept pulling me back. I shared more about that experience in my review, Reading My First Horror Novel: This Wretched Valley.
Horror still hasn’t replaced romance as my favorite genre, so nobody needs to check whether I’ve been body-snatched, but I’m already reading another horror novel for next month’s meeting. A few months ago, I never would have predicted that.
Then there was Dungeon Crawler Carl.
I had never read LitRPG before, and after hearing people recommend this series over and over again, I finally gave it a chance. Between the game mechanics, the ridiculous achievements, the increasingly unhinged dungeon, and Princess Donut being Princess Donut, I understood the obsession much faster than I expected.
You can read my full review of Dungeon Crawler Carl here. I have already finished the second book, too, and my review of Carl’s Doomsday Scenario is now on the blog.
At this point, I am fully invested. There is no helping me.
Trying New Things in My Author Business
July also brought a milestone that felt exciting and mildly terrifying: Mr. West and I registered for our first vendor events this fall.
Until now, most of my author business has existed online. My books are sold online, my readers find me online, and most of the work happens from my desk. Vendor events mean putting the books, the branding, and ourselves in front of people in person, which is a completely different experience.
There are books to order, signs to design, displays to plan, payment systems to test, and approximately four hundred tiny decisions I did not know existed until I signed up.
Even with the nerves, I’m excited. We have talked for a long time about treating our writing as a real business, and these events feel like another step toward building something larger than a collection of books sitting on Amazon.
As for the freshies that spent July staring at me from their unopened supplies, I finally made my first batch on August 4.
They aren’t perfect. I may have gotten a little enthusiastic with the glitter, and I have already learned several things I’ll do differently next time, but they exist. I stopped researching long enough to put the beads in the oven and make something, which was the entire point.
July Still Counted
When I first looked back at July, I measured the month by the unfinished manuscript and the supplies I hadn’t touched. By that standard, it was easy to decide I hadn’t done enough.
That wasn’t the whole month, though.
I read books I never would have chosen for myself. I met people who love talking about stories as much as I do. Mr. West and I supported a local independent bookstore, registered for our first vendor events, and took another step toward the author business we want to build.
I also learned something important about the way pressure affects my creativity. That realization didn’t add words to my manuscript, but it may help me build a writing process that works better than repeatedly setting deadlines and then becoming angry with myself when anxiety gets in the way.
For comparison, my June author wrap-up was filled with visible milestones, including the release of All the Pieces We Hold and reaching 50,000 Kindle Unlimited pages read. July’s progress looked different. It was messier, harder to measure, and spread across several parts of my life, but it still mattered.
Now it’s August, and I’m carrying a few unfinished goals forward with me.
I want to finish Thirteen Kinks of Halloween. I want to prepare for our September vendor events without waiting until the final week and turning my house into a small warehouse. I want to keep experimenting with freshies, even when the results aren’t immediately perfect, and I want to keep making room for the people and opportunities that pull me away from my computer once in a while.
I would still love a month where everything goes according to plan, but until that mythical creature appears, I’m learning to recognize progress even when it arrives wearing a disguise.
What is something you’ve learned about yourself recently? Tell me in the comments. I would love to know what has been working for you, what hasn’t, and whether your plans ever behave themselves any better than mine do.
Keep Browsing
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