at the crossroads of ambition and surrender

it could go either way (or, what to do with a finished manuscript)

apropos of absolutely nothing

As I come to the final stages of editing Hazel’s story, I’m starting to think about what happens next. At the same time as I’m editing, I’ve got half an eye on the current round of Publish and Thrive, a self-publishing course run by Sarra Cannon¹. The course is at the business part, thus why I currently only have a half-eye on it, because I certainly don’t make enough money from my books to have to think about setting up a structured business or worrying about tax write-offs. I don’t market my books, I never really have, and while I still get a fairly steady trickle of organic sales, they’re priced so low and the royalty structure is such that I can literally make only cents per sale/download².

This, my friends, is the reality of self-publishing — my reality, anyway. Without the hustle, grind and relentless effort of keeping oneself ‘relevant’, it’s definitely not all that lucrative. It’s not enough to write books — even good ones, which, I will flatter myself to say mine mostly are — it requires an entrepreneurial mindset, combined with an entreprenuerial effort, to make it financially worthwhile.

Alas, I don’t seem to have that extra, all-important, ingredient.

Many would argue that those things can be learned - and I would agree, I think just about anything can be learned to at least the point of competence, if not excellence — but there’s one more ingredient that is possibly more crucial than either skill or mindset.

Desire.

You have to really want it. If you want to make a go of self-publishing, you really have to want it. Because it’s bloody hard work. And that’s just the book-writing part.

I’m starting to wonder if I do, really want it, that is. I think I do. But if it turns out that I don’t, what does that mean?

I’ve done enough rummaging around in my psyche this last while to have a pretty good idea of my core fears and my core motivations. I understand and acknowledge that I have money wounds. I know my capacities and how they’ve shifted as I’ve aged. I know what I need to do to take care of myself and how to create systems and rhythms that support my creativity. I’m pretty adept at catching myself when I begin to self-sabotage. I know that, when I set myself to achieve something that I really want, I can put my shoulder to the wheel and execute. In other words, I’ve accumulated a goodly amount of self-knowledge which, as I’ve written about before, I believe is crucial to a sustainable creative practice.

So what’s my current diagnosis?

I think it’s a general world weariness (ie. railing against the effects of late-stage capitalism, empathy-overload, compassion-fatigue, emotional exhaustion from caregiving,) compounded by money wounds, with a dusting of boredom and genuine disinterest.

I know.

Yes, I have a lot of work to do around my money-wounds. Hovering on the precipice of possible lay-offs (my husband’s place of work is in a bit of a state at the moment) in an economic climate where the price of everyday existence seems to be ever-increasing makes it difficult to not be in a state of low-grade financial stress.. Still, it’s work that I’m committed to doing. I’m at the point of embracing an abundance mindset, while being mindful of the realities of needing to pay the bills.

Apropos of that, the aforementioned financial uncertainty means I’m reluctant to invest³ in the formal publishing of Hazel’s story, knowing it will potentially take months to recoup those costs and begin to make a (probably quite small) profit.

Those practical issues aside (because they can, indeed, be overcome with enough reason to support the overcoming of them) I need to ask myself, is this work I still want to be doing?

Am I willing to rise above the barriers and persist, or is this a dream I’m ready to let go?

Oof.

I could get bogged down by that rather gloomy question, or I could reframe it as…

Is it that my dream currently doesn’t fit the conventional mold? Is it that I need to look at other options?

Perhaps more importantly, if the above questions were to result in a tiny, whispered “hmmm…maybe?” (spoiler alert: they do), then am I brave enough, do I have energy enough, do I have desire enough, to do that work?

If I’m not brave, I can push through the fear (I’ve done this countless times in my life).

If I don’t have the energy, I can create a rhythm that maximizes the energy I do have.

But if I don’t have the desire, there’s not much that will help. If I’m not interested, I’m just not going to do it⁴.

I have a niggling fear that’s where I am right now.

The keyword here, though, is fear. Because fear can impact desire. Fear can make me believe I don’t want something, when maybe I’m just afraid of the outcomes.

Fear can trick me into settling for less, something else, or nothing at all.

So what am I afraid of? An assortment of things, I suppose, including a fear of having put forth a great deal of time and effort only to have it all come to nothing.⁵ A fear of commitment — this book could, conceivably spawn others, do I want to commit to carrying on with it? I’m already two books behind in my Glencarragh series,⁶ do I want to launch another? Truthfully, even just the thought of it exhausts me. And in an ironic twist of dialectics, the idea of so much possibility is really quite exciting.

Yes, I’m a contradiction. Welcome to my brain.

---

I’ve really enjoyed writing Hazel’s story. Despite the unruly mess it was in, I’ve managed to wrangle it into a readable form. I’ve made myself laugh and I’ve made myself cry and I’ve marveled at the fact I created the occasionally brilliant sentence. It’s been a way to process my grief and to indulge my imagination, as well as being a nod to the books that have held my tattered spirit and my battered heart together over the years.

Even so, it’s absolutely the wrong book for me to be publishing right now. Seeing as how I don’t actively promote or market my work, I rely on organic sales and throwing in another (unfinished) series wouldn’t be the most enlightened choice. Of course, that’s me wearing my strategic, ambitious author hat.

When I’m wearing my eff-it-all-I-do-what-I-want hat, I’m impatient and think it’s a shame to leave a finished manuscript languishing on my hard-drive for want of a cover and a more algorithmically suitable time to be released into the world. I flip a double bird to best practice and every other gatekeeping rule that lurks insidiously in the indie publishing world.

As I said in the subtitle, it could go either way.

I think, though, that there’s a third way. I’m thinking, I could upload it here, on Substack…chapter by chapter? It wasn’t written for this purpose, ie. it's not written in a serialized format, and I’ve no intention of reconfiguring it for that purpose, so it would be a take it as it comes scenario.

It could be a disaster. It may not. There’s no certainty in any decision I make - there never is - and yes, that’s very confronting to my Thinking strengths brain.

Thoughts?

One way or another, I’m looking at May for a release date…possibly sooner, but not later.

Stay tuned…

~m. xo

1. I signed up for this course, the very first time she ran it —back in 2020 (?) — actually, it may have been 2019….what is time, after all? Anyway, you get lifetime access and so are able to follow along each time it goes live, if you so choose. It’s a fantastic course, very comprehensive and very aligned with my own philosophies on creativity…10/10 recommend.

2. I just got a sales invoice from Draft2Digital for 8 cents — from a digital library download.

3. Other than my time to actually write/edit/format the book, the only financial investments I make are commissioning a cover and ordering copies for my local bookstore.

4. Call it pig-headedness, call it a lack of self-discipline (go ahead, I have, plenty of times, as have others), call it what you like…it’s just who I am. I mean, if under duress, I will do it. But I won’t do it well and the experience will ultimately harm my mental health.

5. Of course, having a finished book isn’t ‘nothing’ — and that’s something I’m still grappling with — I’m still toiling under the yoke of capitalism which tells me I should get something (money, recognition etc) in return for my efforts or it doesn’t count.

6. I’ve planned two more books to tie up any unanswered questions (all mine, at this point) in Glencarragh-past, as well as a final book set in Glencarragh-present. Hazel’s world could, theoretically, be a series of three.