(Or, adjusting schedules)
That’s it. I’m changing the schedule for my next Kickstarter project.
As a person with a high Achievement component, that decision annoys me, but it is what it is. To give in to that frustration and just decide to move forward can at times be a good thing, but this, I think, not one of those times.
The next couple of weeks are going to be hectic.
I’ll be occupied with an adventure, whatever that will wind up meaning. It will be all good, of course, but it’s going to put another bend in the road in the path of my “writer business recovery” process (*) that I’ve been writing about for the past several months. Such is the life of an independently published writer, right?
In the immortal words of Roseanne Roseannadanna, It’s always something.
* (I’ll skip the redundant details, but for new folks, the gist of this is that I’ve had a life roll that messed with me)
To be specific, my brother and I are leaving this coming Sunday to take a roughly two-week cross-country jaunt wherein we plan to stop at pretty much every city that our now-departed parents (and grandparents) lived in. It should be fun. Interesting. And probably more emotional than I’m even thinking it will be. And I’m already thinking it might be pretty emotional. [grin] It will be a thing to see all the houses where we grew up. Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, Phoenix, and a few more places in between. Our grandfather and Uncle came from Casey, Illinois, which is apparently famous for housing the most “World’s Biggest” items—like the World’s Biggest Rocking Chair, or whatever. Our grandmother came from Fostoria, Ohio. We’ve never been to either place.
So, yeah, interesting.
This will obviously put a crimp in all my basic plans, but the angst that causes will be made worse because I’m the kind of personality who always thinks they can get more done in parallel than is practical. That achiever in me will be disappointed. The bastard!
I have already, for example, promised myself I’ll do some writing while we’re on the road.
Or at least keep up blog posts and stay up with socials.
Whatever.
I’ll probably write here about the trip, too—though I promise it will be focused on writing somehow. Yeah, I know, that’s not a hard promise to keep. Almost everything I’m focusing on these days has something to do with writing. We’ll see, though.
I’m sure I’ll have some success during the trip, too. I enjoy all those things, and they aren’t hard to do in transit. But let’s face it, I’m old enough to know that I’ll be less “effective” while on the road than I think I’ll be, and for very good reason. Life is to be lived, you know? A road trip with Jeff is going to be a blast. Yay us! I’d be pissed at myself if I let my writing projects get in the way of this There and Back Again vision quest. Jeff and I may never again get a chance to have this kind of time together, so…screw it, let’s light this candle.
It’s against this backdrop that I’ve actually made a “mature decision” and pushed back the scheduled launch of my next project, which I had planned for a launch on September 16th (and which now will be either September 23rd or 30th, depending). The project is one I really love, of course, a collection titled 1101 Digital Stories in An Analog World. It’s the sibling to last year’s 1100 Digital Stories in an Analog World. Together, they comprise the entirety of the stories I’ve placed in Analog SF and Fact magazine over the years.
If you’re interested in getting notified of its launch, you can check the project out here. I’d certainly appreciate the follow.
My original scheduling, however, was made with the application of a full dose of my not-atypical bravado.
We’ll be back by the 13th, give or take, I told myself. I can make the 16th happen!
And I suppose that’s not wrong. If I rushed and scurried, I’m sure I could pull that off. But if there’s one thing I’m trying to take to heart now, it’s my own best advice that everything about having a long “career” in this business is keeping yourself in the right emotional frame of mind to do the work. I’m going to be tired when I get back. I’m going to need to recover. As an indie, there’s just me in here (as my oft-neglected podcast is titled). Doing a good job on a Kickstarter is real work. And that work is much more intense than you’d think it is.
I owe it to the project to be sharp as it progresses, and I owe it to the project’s backers to be sharp, too. Kickstarters should be fun. It would make me mad if I screwed that up. I want to be at the top of my game when I run it.
And, alas, it seems obvious that keeping to my original schedule would grind me down.
A delay is fine, too. Really, it is. No one even knew the schedule but me, after all. Not that that matters in the moment, of course. Since I knew the schedule, that schedule existed! Such is the life of me.
So, yes, I’m going to push the launch back a week, and maybe even two weeks. I’ve told myself that finalizing the date will come the day after I get back, which seems like the best idea.
I was going to pause here and make another “aside” to highlight the idea that herein lies another beauty of being an independent writer, that as such, my world is mine (to an extent!). As an indie, I can make any danged decision I danged-well want to. But that’s true (to an extent) no matter who you are. We can almost all control something in every situation we find ourselves in, anyway. Even if that something is only how we look at things. We all get choices, and sometimes a series of choices—all of which impact each other. I could, for example, decide to keep to my deadline and “work” like a maniac during the cross-country tour. Or I could take actions to pre-load parts of the 1101 project to make it run on autopilot. There are things I could do, and still hold the schedule I first planned.
But I think that’s a bad idea.
The goal is to live my best life in all aspects.
Hitting that deadline is not critical. Missing it will not make the world come to a grinding halt. Twenty years from now, it will make no difference at all.
Better to breathe, better to enjoy life. Better to give myself to the adventure before me in whatever way makes sense, and then better to take the time and do the very best job I can do to present a book I think is very cool to people who I hope will see that book the same way.
When I made the choice to delay, I knew it was right. My shoulders relaxed. I drew a big breath and let it out. I immediately felt better.
So now, let me say this: Whatever issue you might be dealing with today, if it’s got you a bit tied up in knots, I hope maybe this idea will help you see what steps might be right for you. Drive on? Burn the candles at both ends to make something happen? Take a quick detour to your local ice cream shop? Tune out for a bit? Take a nap?
It’s all good.
You get to figure that out for yourself. And in any particular moment, any one of those could be right.
But remember this (and Note to Self), the goal is to live your best life. A major part of that is to let yourself focus on the things you need to do—whatever they may be—to keep yourself in the right emotional state to do the work.
I am a human. Not an AI. You can tell because keep a Patreon page where I talk about writing and being a writer (among other things). In other words, I post a lot of things there before I post them here. I also share occasional work in progress for Patrons only, and give special discounts and sometimes even free books to Patrons at various levels. If you’d like to support me–or just this blog–you can do so by clicking here:
