It's Never One Thing

But, apparently, that's the way I like it

Nothing says “I used a stock photo” like when the words are in a different language. 🤣 Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Hey there,

I’ve been reflecting on lessons learned from the Festival of Writing for a while, and I think I’ll take a break from that this week. We’re going to visit my motherland next Thursday (Missouri, nothing too glamourous), and it feels like all the days up until then are full of doing one thing and then doing another thing and another until the day is over.

Times like these set my brain into scatter mode. Think: Hungry Hungry Hippos, but inside my cranium, or Joy from Inside Out when she’s trying to gather up all the core memories before they roll away. That’s me, trying to catch, hold onto, or not drop all the balls at once, which makes it hard to focus on a single thought for more than thirty seconds. So far this week, I:

• Reviewed an essay I wrote three months ago that is going to be published in a really cool online magazine soon!

• Created a budget for my online news publication (while trying not to puke at the idea of asking people for money).

• Watched two self-publishing webinars.

• Recorded and edited a podcast.

• Wrote up submission materials for another project I’m working on.

• Spoke with someone who (unlike me) knows what he’s talking about, about paid newsletter sponsorships.

• Researched and chose a new platform for my math class for parents and moved all the course content over there (because the platform I had them on originally wanted me to change them every, like, three months? Even though math standards haven’t changed in 12 years?)

And it’s—what—noon on Tuesday?

There’s a lot more on the list for this week and next, like:

• Researching self-publishing.

• Putting together ad campaigns for my news publication, my math class for parents, and my daughter’s kids’ book. (By the way, if you’ve read this book but not reviewed it yet, please go review it on Amazon right now! I hear 25 reviews can do wonders for a book, and right now we’re holding steady at 7. If you already reviewed it, thank you!)

• Brainstorming and maybe starting to write my way into the sequel to When We Were Mothers. 🤩 Hopefully it won’t be another four years before you get to read it.

• Tapping my fingers on my desk as I repeatedly refresh my email, just in case an agent response came through in the last fifteen seconds.

I bet there’s even more, but my Rocketbook is in the other room and its contents aren’t super important anyway, just this general conclusion: Writers do a lot more than writing. The writing (for me, at least) is the fun part, the “easy” part (though it’s really just a different kind of hard). But really, my day is just list of things, often ones that have nothing to do with writing. And those things are what (if all goes as planned) bring in the actual income. Advertising and social media to sell books, or courses, or subscriptions. Articles to get your name out there and share your perspective with the world. Freelancing so you can do for others what you don’t have time to do for your own business. And day jobs! Oh, the day jobs!

I do a little of all of these, and while it’s not what I was expecting when I got into writing, it definitely has turned my writing into a career that brings in (a very tiny amount of) actual money.

And, for the most part, I’ve found I quite like it.

What’s Exciting Me

Did I tell you this thing? Did I tell you I sold a book? That’s quite a feat, considering the book isn’t available for purchase anywhere yet. I was at a party a week or two ago, and a friend there expressed interest in the novel. I told her I’d send it to her, and she in turn insisted to pay me for it. The Venmo subject said, “Intellectual Property,” which made me smile. Because it’s this intangible Intellectual Property that really takes the most time, effort, brainpower, and energy to create - and since it’s invisible, it’s easy to think it’s not worth anything. Yet in other businesses, you have to pay to license someone’s IP or get sued for using it improperly. So it’s nice to have someone recognize all that invisible labor and compensate me for it.

What’s Entertaining Me

We’ve watched all of the latest season of Cobra Kai since I last talked to you. It was entertaining. Not as shark-jumpy as the previous two seasons, or maybe I’ve gotten numb to the absurdity. Either way, as much as I hated Johnny after watching the first episode, I love him that much now. And William Zabka does a great job playing him.

We’re about to start The Wire. We’ve never seen any of it. I knoooooow! I am confident we’ll enjoy it, as it’s come highly recommended.

And then, there are about a hundred things we haven’t watched yet that we need to watch. But… only so much time in the day when you wake up at 5AM.

What’s Enlightening Me

Introspection time: I’ve been helping my daughter through a tough time with a friend. She’s been friends with this person for five years. Five years! They talk every day, sometimes for hours. When I learned they had a falling out, I was super sad. And then I realized I envy their relationship. It was hard for me to form genuine friendships as a kid, and when I see girls—especially girls—maintain relationships for that long, it gives me a little twinge of what I wish I’d had at that age.

And this is where I back off and stop trying to help her heal that friendship; I can be there for her and give her some insight into how everyone might be feeling, but this is her friendship and not mine, and as much as I know how special it is, it’s going to be up to her to heal it.

That’s it for me today. Time to go do another thing.

Take care. Until next time,