How To Take Time Off
While the title to this week's post poses an answer, the truth is, "how do I take time off?" is a difficult question for me to answer. To begin with, I don't know how. It's not that I am some super driven workaholic who can't stop (although I have to admit I am driven), it's how do I stop and keep things afloat?
Like many of you, I am a writer. I am a full time writer, which means writing is how I earn my living. I do not have a side job. I do not teach or consult. My days are spent writing and marketing my work. And for me, that is a full time job. This year two of my novels (Boyfriend From Hell and Earth Angel) reached the top 10 on the Amazon ebook Best Seller list for Children's & YA books. They did not arrive there by happenstance. It took a lot of marketing to get my books there. But I have noticed that I spend far less time reading than I once did. The time I once spent reading, I now spend writing and marketing.
But the time has come for me to take a much needed break. I've been feeling the burnout coming for some time. And so I plan to take a week off. A week of R&R. A week where I will try not to tweet, or Facebook or blog. A week where I will recharge my batteries, hopefully for another year. But here's the thing--I feel that as soon as I stop, my sales will stop. This week I have cut down on my marketing, and already my sales have begun to slip. So instead of me spending the week resting, I will spend the week worrying. So, I have a question for you: how do you find the time to take a break without worrying that when the break is over your career will be over, too? I'd love to hear any and everybody's thoughts on this. In this new digital age, it is getting harder and harder to get away from it all. Please tell me how, or if, you do it.
Like many of you, I am a writer. I am a full time writer, which means writing is how I earn my living. I do not have a side job. I do not teach or consult. My days are spent writing and marketing my work. And for me, that is a full time job. This year two of my novels (Boyfriend From Hell and Earth Angel) reached the top 10 on the Amazon ebook Best Seller list for Children's & YA books. They did not arrive there by happenstance. It took a lot of marketing to get my books there. But I have noticed that I spend far less time reading than I once did. The time I once spent reading, I now spend writing and marketing.
But the time has come for me to take a much needed break. I've been feeling the burnout coming for some time. And so I plan to take a week off. A week of R&R. A week where I will try not to tweet, or Facebook or blog. A week where I will recharge my batteries, hopefully for another year. But here's the thing--I feel that as soon as I stop, my sales will stop. This week I have cut down on my marketing, and already my sales have begun to slip. So instead of me spending the week resting, I will spend the week worrying. So, I have a question for you: how do you find the time to take a break without worrying that when the break is over your career will be over, too? I'd love to hear any and everybody's thoughts on this. In this new digital age, it is getting harder and harder to get away from it all. Please tell me how, or if, you do it.
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I'm trying to figure out a way this summer to recharge myself. I've got a YA novel aching to be revised and another one wants to be written. But I get worried about money, money, money. Yep. It's a rich man's world!
But I also remember something JA Konrath said: In order to keep your sales going you need to write. Otherwise you'll go buggy. Right now I make myself write a minimum 750 words in the mornings. It might be an essay. Might be me complaining about "Fifty Shades of Gray" But it's something. It's the baking soda you put in when you bake something. Then you add other things (eggs, cake mix, brown sugar) You put it in the oven. And like my mentor Susan Browne said when something was finished "the cake is baked."
Go bake a cake. We'll be here when you come back.