Yes, I’ve been enjoying your posts, Luccia. Thank you for your kind words and you’re quite right, of course, life is too short not to spend it doing what you enjoy, so I’m reverting back to working on my first drafts, and not putting myself under pressure with it. xx

That all sounds so sensible, Cindy, and I like that you know exactly what works for you, and what keeps you happy in this game. My problem is that my thoughts and actions bounce from one extreme to another but, as I was telling someone earlier, I guess for the time being I’ll just bumble along, trying to keep it simple, until what I really want reveals itself to me. Writing and reading… seems like a good way to go.

Yup! I think we all need a bit more of that!

Wow – balance! Yes! I’ve forgotten what that looks and feels like. I tend to work 7 days a week, either writing or editing and formatting for other writers. Yesterday, around 3pm, I threw up my hands and said, “That’s it. I’m done.” I shut it down and lounged on the couch reading. While it still wasn’t “balance,” it felt good to just escape for a bit.

You’re quite right about holidays, Heather. I don’t take many anyway but really missed my annual dose of lying around reading books this year. To be honest I don’t think taking the one day off at the moment is going to be enough. However, we are where we are so we’ve just got to grin and bear it a little bit longer. I find Amazon ads do work but need some time to actually do the background work that goes into them. That’s the sort of time I’m missing, it’s not the sort of thing you can pick up when you have the odd half an hour here or there. So you’re probably right to only concentrate on one thing at once and the writing is where it all starts so that seems like the sensible place to put my time and effort.

Thanks for your thoughts, Heather, it’s much appreciated.

Thank you, Linda and I agree. It was nice to write in the corona-free world of my current WIP and perhaps I need to do more of that and less of everything else… although my clients may not agree! 🙂

It’s so easy for us all to see the time in lockdown as an opportunity to get more work done as, for the most part, we’re unable to go abroad this year. But don’t forget that we take holidays for a reason. It might be an idea to take some time out to refresh and go more easy on yourself.

Just looking at your latest book on Amazon, it strikes me that you have been doing a lot of things right as most of your ‘also boughts’ are a similar genre. If you go back to writing for pleasure you can always delay the marketing and promotion till you’re ready to release a new novel and then go all out e.g. by reducing the price of previous books etc. Amazon advertising is a minefield in itself. I’ve heard a lot of indies say it doesn’t work but it must work otherwise publishers wouldn’t use it. I think it’s a matter of knowing how to use it effectively. At the moment my publishers are running ads on my books but they’re trying different keywords etc to see which works the best.

I’m also wondering whether you might have had Covid without realising it. I had it last month and, because I strongly suspected that I might have already had it in March, I wrote it off as a heavy cold and wasn’t going to get tested. The symptoms really were like a bad cold but it leaves you exhausted, which might be why you’re feeling so tired now.

I hope you make the right decision for you, Georgia. I think you have a talent and it’s worth pursuing but don’t let it dominate your life.