**Edited to change title and add graphic

These days, I have a lot of advertisements popping up on my social media that are variations of online classes promising The Secret.

The secret to writing faster.

The secret to a bigger email list.

The secret to cracking the code to becoming a bestseller.

I’ve fallen for these. It’s always when I’m feeling desperate for a faster, easier process than the one I have. And you know what?

It’s B.S. because THERE IS NO EASY BUTTON TO SUCCESS.

I’m sorry, there just isn’t.

So instead of believing the promise of an easy button, we can:

Writer faster by sitting our butts in the chair and writing. Over and over, every day that we can, until all those words build into a book. And then we edit, rewrite, and do it all again until we have the best book we can create.

To get a bigger email list, we must write gripping books over and over, create content that subscribers like to get in their newsletters and have patience. Lasting success is rarely instant. Give it time and learn from trial and error.

To crack the code to becoming a bestseller…come on guys, if there was a code or magic elixir, I wouldn’t tell you for free. I’d make you buy my online class, and we’d all be bestsellers Just like if there was a get-rich-quick scheme that truly worked, we’d all be rich. The things you can do; write compelling books consistently, release as often as you can, create a solid marketing strategy to get the word out, and say a prayer that readers will love your books enough to spread the word. Because readers are the ultimate and treasured key to the bestseller lists.

To be clear, I’m all for classes that help. Like workshops to build, develop, or sharpen craft. Or taking an online class with an experienced author or publicist to understand the different between marketing and publicity, and how to use them to promote your titles. FYI, the stripped down, overly simple explanation of the different between marketing and publicity is:

Marketing is paid promotion (like buying ads, paying for a blog tour, etc.)

Publicity is free (like people posting, tweeting, or talking about your book)

There are great classes out there to take, but if we’re looking for the easy button to success, then let’s all say this together. “THERE IS NO EASY BUTTON.”

Accept that it’s hard, shake off the fears and insecurities, and do the work!

Maggie and I were so bored this weekend that we went to visit Count Dracula. We first met him around Halloween when he just suddenly turned up.

I guess he likes it out there with all the rocks, snakes, lizards and coyotes to count. Yep that was a silly reference to The Count from Sesame Street. By the way, I’m pretty sure The Count’s need to count everything was probably OCD. And yes, my thoughts really do jump around a lot lately, LOL

Anyhow, my weekend was boring. Well except for the scene I wrote in my book where my witch performs a cool magic trick using shadows and a crossbow.

What? That’s not weird, is it?

Sigh, we all know this book is trying to send me screaming into early retirement. But I’m way too stubborn to give in, so I sat my butt at the computer all freaking weekend, trying to figure out why I can’t get it going. I think I finally got it semi sorted yesterday, and it only took something like 253 scenes to get there. My process is a tad inefficient I am not going to admit how many actual pages I’ve written and cut. In my defense, I have them all in a cut file, and I plan to use a few of those scenes later so they aren’t a total loss.

I bet your weekend was a lot more interesting than mine!

TGIF. I’m gonna try to think of five things to share, but it’s slim pickings this week.

1. I managed to get the packet of information off to Inkslinger PR to arrange the blog tour for Savaged Illusions, The Compete Series (boxed set).
2. My writing crashed and burned.
3. My concertation went out in search of 2022. I’m trying to lure it back with lots of chocolate and wine.
4. Maggie decided she’s unsure about 2021 and retired to her kennel. She normally doesn’t go in there a lot during the day, but she’s been hanging out in there this week for some reason that makes sense to her. And yeah, she’s hard to see in there, LOL
5. Today, I’m sending the witch hunters out to capture my concertation, and asking the witches to conjure up a spell to write Primal Magic! Or maybe I should have the witches design that spell to stop cutting every freaking scene I write. Yeah, maybe that

Okay that’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

So it’s the first Wednesday Blog in the New Year…and I’ve got nothing Okay, I still plan to revamp Wednesdays into something more when I can. But I must write Primal Magic. It’s so easy to let life interfere, which is what I’ve been doing. Now I’m committed, so I’m making sure I prioritize writing the book over other content. 

I will talk about one career related thing—guiding principles. Throughout our careers, we make choices that define us, and reflect our principles. Sometimes we have to make those choices in the middle of a massive upset in our lives. It’s a zillion times harder to make decisions when things are going wrong, emotions are running high and panic is setting in. 

But your core principles can and will guide you. For instance, when I say I’m “family first,” I’m serious. I’ve stopped by career for my family when crap happened and someone in my family needed me. At the time, I was NOT the sole breadwinner, so that helped a lot. But when it came time to make a hard choice, I didn’t hesitated. Family comes before my career, and that’s the principle that guided my choice. It’s also the reason I won’t destroy a family relationship over politics (if possible–there’s always two people in a relationship and I can only control my actions). 

It’s important to know our core principles. Any time I’ve ignored that principle, I’ve regretted it. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head, which is annoying.

All this brings me to why I fought through my physical issues I was having to finish the Savaged Illusions Trilogy even though I knew it wouldn’t make a huge splash. Time had gone by, and the heated anticipation for the third book cooled. That’s normal. Some would say the smarter decision would have been to not finish it, and move onto something that had more earning potential. That’s true if we’re talking about that one book’s earning potential.

But what about building or maintaining reader trust in me as an author over a career? That’s very important to me. In my mind, I needed to finish the last book, particularly because the first and second books in the trilogy ended on cliffhangers. Otherwise I was breaking an implied promise when I published those first two books with the cliffhangers. Readers had every right to expect the third book to finish the story. So I did what I believed to be the right thing in accordance to my core principles.  

It wasn’t a hard decision, it was the right one for me.

The Wing Slayer Hunters has a little of that too, but those books all ended with the hero and heroines story wrapped up. I could have walked away with a clear enough conscience. But I love the world, readers seem interested and want to write Primal Magic and Fallen Magic.

Once those books are done, then I’ll re-evaluate. 

So to anyone publishing or thinking about it, I would suggest this: Know your core principles. Because when tough times or the curveballs of life hit, you’ll be able to see your next step more clearly. Because tough times find us all sooner or later.

Trust me, it’s much easier to be guided by principles and sheer panic.

Just my 2 cents

Man I hope to get on a schedule again. Wizard and I haven’t been able to keep the days of the week straight since Christmas. But our weekend was good overall. Here’s the highlights:

–We went to see Turbo again on Saturday, and at the same time, got to visit his parents a little more. Many times when we visit, they are smart enough to take advantage of us watching Turbo to get some work done, run errands or tackle projects. But this time, we hung out and visited. It was really nice.

–I got my camera and new noise-canceling headphones with a decent mic set up on my desktop computer. It was super easy. Not sure if/how I’ll use them, but I wanted the option of having them so I could if I want to do it. I asked for it for Christmas Wizard and I have been Zooming each other to test it.

–I sent off Savaged Illusion Series to my formatter to put into a boxed set. I have a brand new awesome cover (I love it!), and I’m hiring Inkslinger PR to set up a one week blog tour in late February. I have a fairly simple plan in place…as long as 2021 doesn’t spring a new plot twist on us. On the other hand, part of being any kind of Entrepreneur is dealing with things that go wrong. It just happens.

–I’m writing today!

How was your weekend?

Happy New Year! I hope 2021 starts of right and only gets better! While I don’t believe our problems and challenges magically vanish at 12:01 am on January 1st, I like the mental reset of the new year.

Okay, let’s jump into sharing five random things about our week.

1. Wizard and I celebrated last night with lobster tails and a nice Syrah wine.
2. I didn’t write this week. I tried…but life and stuff. Today I will write because I want to start the new year off with words and forward progress.
3. I pulled my neck blow drying my hair. Seriously???? Why can’t I ever hurt myself rescuing kittens or something interesting?
4. We battled ants. Pretty sure we won, but we had to resort to bug bombs because they are relentless little buggers.
5. To use the bug bombs, we had to take Maggie and leave the house for several hours. This is a pain when the state is on lockdown and there’s nowhere to go. Plus my neck is sore and I was cranky. Our vague plan was to drive around, get food at a drive through and then find places for Maggie to have bathroom breaks. But just as we were leaving, it was CPA Boy to the rescue! Actually he just randomly called at that moment. And even more fortuitous, they’d taken their three dogs to the groomers for a half day. Maggie and one of their dogs, Cookie, don’t always get along. Anyhow, we went out there, played with Turbo, and they were able to get a couple hours of work done too. It was perfect for us! When we left, Turbo cried and said, “I want to go to Maggie’s house.” He always refers to our house as “Maggie’s house” which I find hilarious. I hated Turbo being sad, but I knew once we left, he’d be fine and he was.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours. Have a great weekend!