Deciding for Joy

I was cutting flowers to bring inside to decorate the house when the thought intruded. Why bother? Yes, they’ll look pretty for a few days; then they’ll shrivel up and die and I’ll have to go out and get some more. Why do all that work for something that won’t last?

Flowers fresh from the garden

But I do. And each time I bring in a fresh set of flowers I remember why I do it.  I love the way they look and smell, the way they bring a bit of color and beauty from outside into the house. It brings me joy to look at them. And those moments of joy are a rare and beautiful thing.
We need those moments, but they don’t always just happen. Sometimes you have to decide to make them happen. Decide it’s worth the effort to cut and arrange some fresh flowers even though they’ll be sagging and brown in a few days.

I’ve come to believe that it’s not just nice but necessary to allow ourselves some time to appreciate beauty even if it takes a bit of work to achieve it. Our souls need to be fed just as our bodies do, and beauty, things that delight our senses, are its nourishment.

Sometimes I have the same feeling about my books.  I put a huge amount of blood, sweat, and love into writing them, editing, rewriting, and formatting them.  Then I send them out into the world and…?  Well, it depends where I send them.  If to a publisher, under contract, they get edited again and finally released into the world, where they’ll sit on a shelf for a few weeks, then get remaindered.  These days they’ll continue to be available online where they’ll sell maybe a few copies a month for the next year or so. If they go to an agent or editor after a query, then most likely they'll be returned with a "Thanks, but no thanks," response.

Sigh. Is it worth it?  I hope so.

Now I’m venturing down a new highway. Since Five Star ended its mystery line before the second in my Market Center Mysteries series was published, I’m publishing it myself.  I’ve paid for editing, have a new cover for the first book (A Gift for Murder) and one for this one (Wired for Murder) that share a new look, and I’m working on the formatting.

I can’t help but wonder if I’ll sell enough copies to make it worth all the work and expense. But I love this series and writing it has brought me joy. A joy I want to share with everyone.  So even if it only sells ten copies, it will be worth the effort.

And now Wired for Murder is available for pre-sale at Amazon.  I'm fearful and excited to see how this venture will work out.

Protect the Joy!

I recently listened to the keynote addresses from this past summer’s RWA convention and one phrase that was used struck me so profoundly I had to write it down on a sticky note that sits on my desk.

Author Nalini Singh (who writes absolutely wonderful paranormal romances) urged everyone to “Protect the joy in your writing.” Plenty of negative forces wait for you whether you’re published or not. Rejections, bad reviews, naysayers, poor sales, etc.  All of it can get you down and take away the pleasure from your writing.

She didn’t offer too many concrete ways to accomplish this, and I understand. The means and method will be different for each person.

On the personal level, I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to decide what that means for me. It certainly hit home, because I haven’t been as productive the last few years. Part of the reason is the demands of family and job on my time. But another part, and maybe even the bigger part, is that I’ve misplaced some of that joy. It got buried beneath keeping up with the day job and family, meeting deadlines, the need to promote relentlessly, and mounting worries about some of my publishers.

I’m trying to find the joy again.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I do set goals to strive for.  So this year my aim is simple: write more, spend less time on everything else (except family). In practice that means, I’m cutting back on my day job work. I run a web business and I’m starting to shut it down. I’ll continue to work with my existing clients, but I’m taking on very few new ones. That way I won’t have the worry of backed-up work hanging over my mind while I’m trying to write.

I plan to worry less about promoting. I’ll continue to blog here and on my own blog, plus occasional guest blogs. I refuse to get hung up in trying to be a huge presence on social media. It’s not my thing and I don’t know how to do it. Instead, I’ll spend that time writing and trying to put out the best stories I can.

I don’t have any current deadlines and I’m going to try to avoid getting into that trap again. I won’t stop submitting to publishers but I want to try to keep it to a book at a time or series that I already have planned out.

I’ll spend less time on the whole business end of the job. I’m designating a time (an hour a week) for handling that.

I’ve already gotten to the point where I can cope with rejections and bad reviews without too much stress and recognize that it’s part of the rough business I’m in. I’m not opposed to self-publishing books that won’t work for my publishers, but I’ll hire out most of the formatting work.

Mostly I just plan to write. Not with any particular publisher or market in mind. I will write what I need to write and hope that I’ll find the joy in it again along the way.

What do you do to protect the joy in your writing?  Or if you've lost it, how have you found it again?