Adjusting My Expectations (#amwriting #halloween #disappointment)

I’ve finally admitted it to myself: I’m not going to have a new book for Halloween this year. This morning I gave up the October 21^st publication slot I’d reserved at Excessica (an author co-op where you can schedule your own releases) so that someone else could use it.

As I noted in my blog yesterday, Halloween is special for me. It really hurts to let it pass without a literary celebration, but what can I do?

I haven’t run out of ideas or anything. Far from it. I have two longer paranormal works in progress, either of which would have been appropriate for Halloween. However, my real world schedule has been so hectic that I realized there was no way I could finish writing either of them this month—not to mention dealing with editing, cover art and so on.

In the last six months, I’ve done five international business trips, each averaging a week long. Now, I love traveling, even for work, but this is too much of a good thing! Not only does each trip require a lot preparation (and recovery time, in some cases), but I still have to fulfill my normal job responsibilities. That means I’ve had to squeeze four weeks work into three weeks, month after month.

Needless to say, this hasn’t left me a lot of time to write.

I’ll admit to feeling disappointed, even a bit discouraged. However, I have to accept the things I can’t change. I have to adjust my expectations. Last year I had sixteen releases, assuming you count short stories in anthologies—twelve if you’re only interested in single-author releases. This year so far there have been four.

Sometimes I feel like saying “What’s the use?” and giving up. I can’t though. There are stories waiting to be written. And I have at least a few fans eager to read them. My progress may be slow, but if I can write even a thousand words in a week, I’ll eventually finish the book.

So I’ll post this blog, then get back to my WIP.