It has been 305 days since I uploaded my first e-book on Amazon, the one that started this Indie-publishing dream for me. And it has been forty days since I launched my sixth e-book (with way more coming) to Amazon. I am happy with my progress so far, during this initial year, placing half a dozen e-books into the ether known as Amazon. Five of them within B&N's PubIt! system. My debut novel, Good Ole Boys, remains exclusive to Amazon until mid-March, which accounts for the difference in my offerings between the two sites.
Because this is fun, those 305 days do not seem that long. Yet it has been in a way when you consider it is just sixty days shy of one year. I feel sorry for those unhappy people tied to a job they absolutely hate, where they are unappreciated and locked into a seemingly never-ending cycle of dread and drudgery. It takes some confidence and a truly inspiring dream to break out of those chains but, oh, how it is worth it when you find where you truly belong.
Doing without a steady paycheck--expecting one every first and fifteenth of the month--still takes some imaginative solutions at times. One month I may juggle bills. In the longer term, I may seek a McJob. Currently I am between those "day job" happenings or even having that monthly shuffle technique. This is my "sweet spot."
And I wouldn't change my new career and the new life that came with it. I don't know if I can count it toward growing up or older or just being wiser or, my personal favorite, being where I am meant to be, but I worry so much less now than when I made a consistent salary three times that which I presently live on. Not to mention how utterly, joyfully, happily ecstatic I am operating in total freedom to do what I love and get paid for it. After all, I spent all those early years enjoying my writing attempts without being paid one shiny new penny.
Until mid-2011, as I became a paid author. Or back in mid-2008, when I became a paid freelance copy editor. Both I count as miraculous dreams-come-true for me.
Reminding myself I have enough money for today is truly comforting and puts me in the present with the right mind-set. Plus, I know for each day I stand firm, I am one day closer to that elusive "overnight success."
FYI: Avoid those living-in-the-past moments as it is usually accompanied with regret or only-if thinking or otherwise somewhat hopeless in that things today cannot be as great as the "good old days." Stop that negative thinking now! And if you are just wishing, daydreaming about your future, and not putting some action behind it, well, you might as well be watching TV or a movie and enjoying someone else's life for an hour or two. For you are seeking a temporary escape not a life-altering change.
Among the otherwise sage nuggets Daddy often shares, one thing he told me that I found to be particularly wrong for me was, "Don't burn your bridges." The opposite is my truth. When you are driven, really consumed by an idyllic life-in-the-making, no matter how irrational or long-term, burn those bridges. Step out, take some calculated risks--and your responsibility for their resulting consequences--daily accruing whatever actions, both small and larger, toward that ultimate goal. It shows your faith. It confirms your forward momentum. It speaks to the Universe (my God) and sets those unseen forces in motion with us.
Don't discount what you cannot see . . . .
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