A bit of a personal and work update: the short version.
This month was the first time I almost caved and gave up on my authorship.
Another disclaimer before I go on: I write this not to simply complain or rant, but because I want to share with you behind the scenes things that make a big impact on both my personal and work life that you would otherwise never know. I'll probably feel that big chill of vulnerability once I hit send, but I'm here to connect, so I must share.
See the thing is my time and resources are already very small, so when I spread myself thin in order to give my work the push it deserves, I am really risking many things. But how do you ever get ahead if you don’t grin and bear your hardships and make your leap? Also, there is some wild bad luck that tests me every time I try making a better life...
All three times that I have done a marketing campaign to get Vitality out there, my whole life has imploded — from small things, like all the light bulbs in my house going out and my microwave & vacuum catching on fire right before I’m supposed to have my mother spend a few days at my house, to big and fatal things, like losing my job and my fur baby getting sick and having no resources to help them so that death becomes imminent (there is nothing harder in this life than looking down at someone you love and are responsible for, knowing they need your help but you can’t help them). Every time, everything around me broke down and one of my cats, who have been with me over a decade and were healthy as a kitten, have gone under. This time it’s my baby girl Keura; I found a big breast lump on her a week and half ago and about a week ago she became lethargic and lost her appetite. Just came back from emergency vet yesterday and surgery will cost over $4,000 and I haven’t even been able to pay my rent yet because of my annual website bill came in a couple months early, so I'd figured I'd bend things around a little and pay rent a little late. I have been syringe feeding her and some days are better than others and I was able to pick up three new weekly shifts immediately so there is some hope. I just know from experience that not only will I not have much time at all for my writing career for a long time to come but because my shifts are all different hours (7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm, 11pm-7am) I’m about to say goodbye to sleep and hello again to ill health, physically and mentally.
On top of the things around me imploding, every marketing tool I used for this campaign fell apart for me, even though there was no existing issues before. Email hosts; Goodreads giveaway package; Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads; Audible; Instagram. Really... just too tedious to get into for this post.
Sometime coming up, I’d really like to write a good post for my blog about my journey to becoming an author, including all this mayhem, but until the time I can pull all that crap out of me, I wanted to give you guys this very condensed update and insider’s post.
Excluding time and money on marketing and all the imploding there’s also the actual writing life. This year, especially, has been tough in trying to get time and energy to write and write consistently. From my doctors, my mothers doctors/ insurance and other things, and my work, which I get stuck at all too often, working sometimes more than 24 hours, and then feeling under the weather for days afterwards. It just seems like every time I get back into the story and get connected and get a good creative flow, this is yanked from under me for some other obligation I have to attend to, and I’m kept away from it for days, which I would have to work all over again to get connected again and then it would be time for another job, or sometimes these days filled with other responsibilities turn into weeks and I feel really far from the story. It has been more than 8 months since I’ve been able to have three days consistency in writing and creating, and let me tell you the beautiful creative things that come from those consistent days of flowing creative power, so it very sad that I can ever seem to attain it. But because of all the engagements tearing me from this over and over, I’ve finally hit an impasse a couple weeks ago. I decided it was time for me to stop writing and do another bout of story brainstorming and go over the layout to get a feel of where I am and where I’m going and then start writing at the beginning again, hopefully this time being able to avoid too many interruptions. Though, now this has to be pushed back until things stable on the other fronts.
But believe me, no matter the obstacles, I really fight for this. And this year has also been a good progress in something that will help in the future; I’ve been dealing with illness for over 10 years and careless doctors and spending 70% of every day feeling flu like symptoms, somehow fighting through that to steal 20% of those days to write. But this past winter, I was able to figure out a big cause of that and my whole life opened up before me. Since then, I have been learning to live again and finding ways to better juggle all that I have going on in life. This is a big positive. And means more to come.
Love Crysta & Keura
xx
