Or: A Self-Employed Author Struggles Not to Smother Herself with Goals

Not only is this post a day late, it’s going to be a long one. I’m warning you up front. 😉 But if you’re like me and you wonder if you’re working hard enough or giving it a proper go or doing my dream justice or in it for the long haul or any similar idiom, stick around . . .

I was away last weekend. (Read: I met lots of new people and explained my work often!) And as you may know, I published a novella two weeks ago. (Read: my calendar was a mess of tasks for four weeks leading up to that!) So I came back to my office yesterday with a combination of fresh eyes and self awareness and exhaustion, and I took a look at my planner and saw this:

My editor wants me to finish up the new novel draft before March.

My publisher wants me to draw up plans for releasing second editions of the first three novels.

My social media expert wants me involved in an Instagram campaign a week ago.

My business manager wants me to research a few new revenue streams.

My marketing guru wants me to come up with ideas for my next newsletter.

My PR person wants me more involved on professional message boards, and oh by the way, did I ever follow up with that offer to do a local book talk?

And just in case it’s not clear already how wacky I am, all of those people are me.

Recently I listened to this podcast from Autonomous Creative, an advice site for indie authors and the like. “Labor exploitation is labor exploitation,” the show informed me, even when you’re your own boss. At first I found it interesting, but mostly theoretical. This week, with my new travel-tinted goggles on, I see how awkwardly close to home it came. The truth is, I am a horrible manager of myself.

You might be too–just think about it. In my case, my “manager” expects me not only to pick up new skills, but to be good at them almost instantly. I expect myself to “get out there” at all the right times (I’m a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, by the way) and I constantly demand more from myself. If you could isolate the “managerial” voice in my head, the monologue would go like this: “okay, you finished the first book on target and hit that goal. No time to rest on your laurels! One book isn’t enough these days. Better make it three books. Actually, make it four, to fit in with the calendar better. You see what other people are out there doing, don’t you? Do you want to be successful or not?”

Now, I have to say, I adore all my books and the actual writing is a true pleasure. I want to share them and I do want to succeed. But that’s where the idea of exploitation comes in . . . Because when I work for the love of it and my goals are always shifting, nothing is ever enough.

I spent all of yesterday thinking about this idea of “enough” and what I could write for this blog. What amount of hours per week, what amount of posts, what amount of words written is enough? I wanted to be strictly practical, of course. Like my main character, an alchemist, I wanted to distill the whole thing down into a useful metric. “Enough” is a relative term, so obviously it will relate to your individual goals, I thought. What you are doing is enough when you are getting what you want: money for bills, recognition from a certain source, happy readers. You just have to set your goal at the start and refer back to that.

It’s not a bad idea. But it isn’t exactly how time works, is it? And it’s not how art and culture work, either. Let’s face it: it isn’t really how goals work at all. A good goal is something you can predictably achieve yourself, like setting aside your own time to walk every day or putting together a puzzle with your own diligent work. Money, fame, and reader satisfaction are puzzle pieces that don’t come in the box. They’re all external forces that we simply don’t control. We can try our best to manage our luck, to make those external forces appear, but at the end of the day . . . that just means over-managing ourselves.

So. How do you know if your schedule of writing and interacting and presenting is “enough,” when you don’t have a blueprint or goal to measure it by?

For a scary moment last night, I thought that the answer might be that there is no answer.

But that’s silly, right? I mean, I actually gave you an answer earlier. Nothing is enough.

Bear with me. Nothing. Is. Enough. You sitting around doing nothing because you just exhausted yourself when publishing is enough. You doing something else entirely is enough. Because guess what? That’s when inspiration will strike. And even if it doesn’t, you were enough to begin with. Think about it: that innermost goal, the one you do actually have complete control of, was probably to write. And that’s what you’re doing. Everything else you choose to do is icing on the cake.

As indie authors, we’re bombarded with “have to”s and “should”s. You have to post on social media every day to keep your numbers up. If you want to make money, you should post your books on this site. If you want your readers to remember you, you have to publish regularly. A lot of this is well-meant advice. But it’s also not 100% true. We all know exceptions to the rules. And we all know, deep down, that no “BookTok Engagement” class or “BookBub New Releases” deal can guarantee success; it’s right there in the fine print.

Much as I wish the opposite were true, there’s just no such thing as “enough to be certain of financial security or cultural success,” especially at the beginning of a career. Sure, it’s a good idea to get out there and try things and be present. You have to be out in the field if you want the luck-lightning bolt to strike, right? 😉 But you don’t have to be doing one specific thing, or hitting some special metric. Honestly, at its core, the question “am I doing enough” is irrelevant. You are enough. Just keep doing.

And on that note, I’d like to end with a quote:

When you realize nothing is lacking,

the whole world belongs to you.

Lao Tzu

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