You see all the time news stories about the pace of modern life and I am as bad as anyone for being focused on the next thing and so I sailed through the official release date for The Price of Magic with my head full of blogs that need writing, updates to the website for the new book, the newsletter I’m planning, marketing, and whatever else is going on.

This post was meant to be written and go up at the weekend but life got in the way. Well, part of that is the best laid plan of mice and men oft go astray, but equally I’m working on a post for my American Football blog and as a writer what I really want to do is create and I have a new book to write, which I have started.

We all have these competing pressures in our life. Not just the I’d really like to do X if I could find the time, but I need to get the washing up done and wash the clothes over the weekend and this could get to be a really long list but I’m sure you get the point.

I am not very good at stopping to take a moment. There’s always the next project, something else that needs doing either for work or for home. Even with cutting back I still get caught out and before you know it, my book has officially been released for over a week.

The thing is, I am proud of having another book out but my mind is on to what’s next.

That’s just the way I am wired.

And then you get a message from your friend overseas that their book has arrived.

That’s when it hits. When you’re an independent author the moment of validation isn’t on publication because you have invested in that moment yourself. Yes you wrote a book, had it edited, gone through the typeset and cover design etc. but you are the initiator, no one said we’re going to publish your novel and then takes it away to get it done. I had to make this happen with the help of a lot of people.

That is how it works for me anyway. I have spent enough time on a meditation stool to be pretty aware of how my monkey brain leaps around and that is where most of my writing ideas come from, because at any moment something around me whether I’m researching for a book, listening to a podcast, or just going about my day – my brain will suddenly announce here’s a solution to that story problem, hey this might make a story, you idiot you were working on the wrong blog.

However, if these moments are to go from a quick note on my phone, or a line or two in the ideas folder on my memory stick, to a blog post, short story, or a book, it takes focussed work. However, for people to see that work then other things have to take place.

As a self-publishing author I don’t have one of the large publishing houses doing things for me.

I have companies that I work with, that offer services and I have to work out which options to go for and agree plans and let them do their tasks whilst I do things to support the project.

If I lose track of this and don’t do what I am supposed to then I can spend all the time in the world researching and writing the next book, but maybe no one gets to see it as if I can’t make this book a bigger success than the last one then at what point do I stop investing into these projects?

It is not a sexy writing moment. It is the hard excel spreadsheets and tax returns that running a creative business entails. At the moment I’m not trying to sustain my life with writing, but I am serious about turning this into a venture that at least supports itself and eventually makes a profit.

But in a way this does aid the creative process as it gives me bench marks, it’s a different type of validation but at the end of the day anyone who writes does so to get read. There are many different models on how to do that and it has been an endless discussion for as long as there has been art – why should I pay for this?

There are also many different answers and right now I’m not going into difficult area of justifying art, but I will go into why I want to keep doing this. It’s a simple answer really.

I want to be a better writer.

This makes me a better writer.

I think we have made a better book this time. I think I wrote a better book and went through the process with more knowledge which let me make new and interesting mistakes.

Mistakes are how you learn things. That’s pretty much what science is. Finding out what you got wrong, correcting and then testing the new thing. Then someone comes along and tries to repeat your experiment and finds the mistake you hadn’t even thought of.

I have improved my process but I also know how I want to change things next time. That goes for the practical aspects for writing and editing a novel. I want to put a better book in front of my beta readers and my editor. I want to be able to do this for myself and whilst you can’t skip the editing and proof reading process – I would like to make them easier.

I am already writing book three. There is some more research to do, but I have put together notes and ideas, already spoken to people and realised that I need to do some more blacksmith/armourer research.

That’s all the fun stuff. I also have a tax return that I’d like to do before January this time, marking to do, the mythical newsletter to finish setting up and get going. There’s always something more but also, there’s things going on that I need to pay attention to.

And then, like a ringing meditation bell someone lets you know they’ve ordered your book, and you pause for a second basking for a moment that yes I did do that, and then it is on to the next thing.

To all the things.