I started this blog with the intention of splurging the process of getting this castle and then haven’t been very good at sticking to any kind of schedule. I’ve been going through a lot health wise. And I feel like I’m talking about it almost everywhere and even sort of using it as an excuse for a fact about me in general. I’m not very good at schedules.
But the truth is that I’m not very good at being consistent because my health isn’t consistent. I make all these grand plans when I’m having a good day, or even more rarely, a whole group of good days, and then I seem to forget that I can’t stick to it when I’m having the bad ones.
On top of that, I’ve noticed that I haven’t been able to bring myself to blog about the downsides of trying to be this ambitious, or to talk about the tough parts. I’ve been focusing in my head on this blog being about how I’m going to do it and what process I’m following, when how I’m coping and what I’m struggling with emotionally and mentally is just as important as the logistical difficulties.
And to answer that succinctly:
I have good days, and I have bad days.
On the good days I can focus on the plan and simply try my best to make it work. It’s a plan. I know roughly how much money I have and how much I need and working earns it. I can also invest to earn it. It’s just maths and time, in essence.
But on bad days the doubts creep in. What if I just don’t earn enough in time and I don’t get there before I die? What if it takes so long people will start to assume I’m never going to make it? What if I’m missing something really obvious in how to get there faster? What if my books fail entirely and I go backwards instead of forwards? What if my health fails me entirely and by the time I get there I won’t be able to run it any longer anyway?
So many questions and fears and that’s more where I am at the moment. Life has been a struggle this year. Coming to terms with a diagnosis like this, no matter how well medical research is advancing, is tough. I find myself trying to both plan for the worst and hoping desperately that it won’t come to that.
I know that there’s more risk in a career like mine as well. There wouldn’t need to be a place like the castle to help people with their creative careers if these sorts of careers were easy. They’re not.
Being an indie author also means having to learn marketing. The best art in the world can’t earn money if no one knows it exists. And I want to earn money.
I’m at the point where I both want to be pushing forward toward this goal, marketing hard, writing more good books and hoping something somewhere takes off, but I also need more rest than ever if I’m to keep my health stable. I need to slow down a little.
So that’s where I’m at today, figuring out how to slow down myself while also increasing the marketing and drive for sales compared to before. It all brings me to one conclusion. I need to do less and pay others to do more. That way what energy I do have can be used for progressing toward a castle and telling the stories in my head.
After all, if I’m not healthy enough to make it happen, then there won’t be a castle at all.