Quick Catch-up
I’ve been using this Substack for a while now, but I think this would be the first newsletter where I’m calling it the ‘official’ replacement for my old Writing/Author Newsletter. So, here’s me mentioning it again and making it official and official!
A lot has been happening, personally. For one thing, I’ve recently resigned from my day job, but we’ll get to that later.
Admittedly, I’ve fallen out of the Newsletter game with my old one because, despite everything that’s happened, I didn’t think I had anything worthwhile to share in terms of updates about my writing or author journey. If anything, I’ve been at a standstill for about a year or two since I had a day job and I’ve been stuck trying to figure out a way to get my second book out.
I did say that my Substack was going to be a bit more personal and authentic to my personality than my old email, part of that is the honesty. I struggled to get any writing done for the past couple of years, and I think it’s because the day job isn’t a fit for me (mentally and creatively), as well as my need to figure out what I needed to fix with my book.
I think you can gather as much about that struggle and creative soul-searching in my previous Substack WIP Raven posts.
There would always be a point when I’d feel like all I’ve been posting on my newsletters or social media posts are about how I’m ‘failing’ with the writing goals I’ve set for myself, or how I’m constantly saying sorry. It didn’t feel like a fun thing to read or post about, so I stopped for a while. It took a long while.
It’s usually been a repeat of me saying I’m struggling and then ending the post or newsletter with a hopeful note. It bothered me for a while, thinking that I had made no progress at all, but now, really looking back, I realized that there was progress. It was just difficult to notice it at the time.
Writing-Journey related things I have accomplished in over a year:
Love and Justice was drafted as a whole story sometime last year, and while I had a week off of the day job due to Covid. It had an imperfect ending and a messy build-up, but that’s fixable. It’s editable.
I’ve had a few AHA! moments that gave me a better direction for the Revision. It made me realize I needed to rewrite a LOT, but it always feels nice when things make sense, a satisfying feeling of story blocks falling into place.
I conquered my introverted fears and said yes to a panel where I got to talk to a group of students about my book and writing process! Imposter Syndrome attacked me like crazy but I still did it. I had a good pep talk from my good friend and writer-confidante, Elle Beaumont, and she encouraged me so well that I faced this fear even when I ended up having to do the talk in the middle of the campus library instead of a room!
I do still think that I’m just a beginning writer or a small writer. I’m on the slower side—the snail pace—of getting projects out, too. But I also think that being small and still starting can be a good thing because there’s still so much growth and learning to go through and that can be exciting.
A writer friend of mine, Nancy O’ Toole , author of ‘The Red and Black’ and ‘The Twin Kingdom’ series, has written a blog post about the harsh truths and publishing lessons she learned from 5 years of self-publishing, and I have been thinking about my idea of ‘doing enough’ since. Rather, she says, “Everyone feels as if they are not doing enough”, but maybe from an outside perspective, someone would look at all the work you have done as a writer and still think it’s a pretty big deal. I think that as writers or creatives, we sell ourselves short.
(Read Nancy’s blog post here!)
My Freedom
So, yeah. I recently resigned from what I’ve been calling my ‘toxic day job’, mostly because the environment and the work weren’t a good fit for me. I’ve been going on and on about suffering from a certain ‘Day Job’ all over my social media and here, of course, though not in great detail. I’m still wrapping my mind around the ‘what now’ aspect of things, but it’s one of those situations where it’s like the ‘wound is fresh’ and I couldn’t put into words the process or story of my breakthrough. I do have friends who commend me and have celebrated with me for my decision. But it’s funny how one dreams of freedom long enough that the taste of it is both peculiar and precious.
One gets a clean slate.
I also think it’s a period of healing and transition.
Recently I’ve taken a few art commissions using my Ko-Fi and I feel particularly proud of the pieces I’ve accomplished so far. I’m also building a mini-portfolio on Carrd that I hope to promote soon.
I still couldn’t find a good rhythm and momentum with revisions, even with using Scrivener and Notion as tools, though I enjoy having them at the ready. I think I have to go back to my outline and figure out what needs fixing in my manuscript. It’s a first couple of steps.
In the meantime, I’ll keep posting when I can.
