The things I learned when writing after a hiatus

Writing "Encryption of the Heart" after a baby and the loss of my father has taught me a lot about the mental side of writing, to put it mildly...

The first thing going back to writing after becoming a new mom taught me? That maybe I don’t have the capacity to write full blown series right now, and that’s ok. But taking a hiatus in the middle of writing “Encryption of the Heart” following the sudden passing of my father taught me that, in the grand scheme of things, all this worrying about writing is silly.

Has that stopped me from worrying? No, obviously. But I can still recognize it’s a silly thing for me to spend brain capacity on. The perfectionist in me, the millennial hustle culture master, likes to scream that I should do more, that what I have done is never “good enough”.

Did I actually learn writing techniques and marketing lessons during this phase? Also yes, but that’s more technical than the Big Stuff. So let’s dive into the nuance first, and dismantle that beast.

The brain is not braining

Look, I love me a series. My first series? The Monster of Selkirk? Six books. My favorite book series, The Locked Tomb, is 4 books (or would be, if the final book ever released). I had no problem with a long series, writing or reading wise. But after my son was born, my capacity for keeping track of long plot lines has greatly diminished. This isn’t the case for all authors who are also parents, let me be clear. I’m speaking purely of yours truly’s experience with parenthood.

I just can’t mentally keep track of characters and plot points that span multiple books right now no matter how good my world bible is, or how many notes I take. And if, by some stroke of fate and luck, I do return to a series right now, it better have a recap because I struggle with remembering what I did two days ago, let alone trying to recall what happened in a book I read months (or in some cases, years) ago.

This lack of brain capacity, of energy, has taught me to scale back. It was a surprisingly hard thing to embrace. Ultimately, what made it “ok” for me to focus on stand alone books was making them part of a shared universe. I had spent so long meticulously building my cyberpunk magical world of Eerden, everything from the religion to the kinds of magic infused weapons people have, that moving on to stand alones was a bit soul crushing. Until I gave myself permission to write stand alones in a world I’ve already created.

This took off a lot of burden on my time and energy, and made me happy. Yay!

But my genre is niche and stand alones in that genre even more-so. So did this decision make my career happy? Eh, not so much. That’s the craft and marketing lesson in this for you: it’s hard to sell niche in today’s current book market. But because my capacity to cram more stuff into my head is not great at the moment, well, that’s what won out for the time being.

Sometimes, the best thing to get out of a rut due to life circumstances is the path of least resistance. For me, that was staying in a lane I was familiar with, one I didn’t have to build as I went along. I can write and publish books still, adding to my future backlog, but it’s in a niche that’s hard to market as romantic stand alones. That’s the trade off. My hope is that, one day, having this backlog is going to pay off once I have more energy to create something new in familiar spaces for readers. But that is not this day.

I like to think I’m playing the long game. This is a tactic that may not pay off right now, but with the hope that it can and will in the future.

Trying not to sweat the small(?) stuff

There are a lot of aspects that go into indie publishing, or, really, just publishing in general but it feels a lot more… personal as an indie author. Indie authors are afforded far more control than most traditionally published authors. We can pick our covers, our release dates, we have control over whether or not to push our launches up or back, we can make our own preorder incentives and price points for our books, and we get to control our marketing endeavors as well. With that level of control, when things don’t work out the way we envision, the “failure” feels a lot more personal.

But the dirty secret is, even with so much in our control, success is still not one of those things.

Sure, there are things we can do to mitigate the chances of a flop: writing to market, writing series in a rapid release format, professional covers that fit the genre, and so on. The biggest is writing to market and securing a large group of early readers who will post their reviews prior to release to drum up day one sales. But even then, once the book is published, how well it’s received and how quickly readers rush to get it is not in our control.

Which is why it can feel like a failure when a book, a marketing plan, preorder art, all of that hard work we do prior to launch, doesn’t give the results we want. It could be that other big releases came out that day, flash sales of popular books we couldn’t plan around, or just a lot of “breaking news” that will bury the launch and/or scare readers away from spending money.

I say all this mainly to help myself come to terms with, despite me busting my ass on “Encryption of the Heart” and its launch, sales did not hit my expectations. This is me, attempting to post mortem what could have gone wrong, or if a combination of the world situation plus a niche genre meant that I never really had a chance.

This is also me, breathing in, and out, and reassuring myself that the success of a book launch doesn’t rest on the things I can’t control (sales and a warm reception), but on the fact that I did my fucking best.

I made sure my book was as good as I could get it, that my story was something I was insanely proud of, and my cover gorgeous. That is what I should measure my success on. The fact that I wrote the book, I did my best, and I released into the world something I am very proud of. The rest of it? That’s the small stuff I shouldn’t be sweating.

The fact that I was able to publish a book after having my son, and then losing my dad unexpectedly all within two years should be enough. It is enough.

I successfully launched a book. And after the devastation of grief and still adjusting even a year later to what life looks and functions like without that stalwart presence, being able to focus enough to get this book out there as a team of one? It’s fucking incredible.

I remind myself of this each time I get down on myself. It doesn’t always work but, hey, practice makes perfect, right? And ultimately, this will be a healthier, happier mindset to adopt so, I’m going full throttle with it.

So what’s the take away

When I first had my son, the question was: am I still able to write? As in: can I still tell stories. “Encryption of the Heart” answered that question.

But then the question shifted to: am I still able to write? As in: time and emotional toll wise, what about this process still works in the wake of grief, and a tiny tyrannt. My latest book showed me that writing, being able to keep that muscle toned, is possible. But it needs to be at a relaxed pace and in a way that acknolwedges that my brain is so full of kid things and still navigating how to live and take care of everyone else without my dad’s help and guidance.

That resulted in a slower publishing cycle, staying in a familiar (to me) genre, and, for now, removing the pressure of aggressive marketing. These decisions allow me to write and publish, to continue to create and provide you and other readers with stories I am very proud of. But what they don’t do is hit a wide audience, they don’t satisfy the social media or even Amazon algorithms, and with everything else on my plate, I’m learning to accept that as fine and putting the “success” hat on the act of publishing rather than sales.

I’m learning that it’s okay to focus on my well-being first, and if that means I take a break from writing because the emotional wounds of my characters are cutting through to my own heart, then there’s nothing wrong with that. All it makes me do is promise that there will be new books, and apologize for their wait.

Good thing that the “Love, Tech, and Magic” series is all stand alones, right?

So what’s next? I do have a writing update for you! But for now, I hope you enjoyed this little peak behind the curtain of my indie author process.