Literary Yoga?
One of the most difficult things for me is to decide how to find balance. Do I work on writing my next novel? Do I spend time with my family? Do I work on social media? Or videos, covers, agents, even strange new tan lines? Since I still love my day job, I’ve got to find ways to successfully divide my time between the things I have to do and the things I’d like to do.
In my humblish opinion, being successful in today’s publishing world is much different and more complex than any other time in history. It isn’t necessarily more difficult, as there are so many more venues to showcase authors, but the sheer numbers of authors, publishers, and sites sometimes make it more difficult to be noticed or ‘found’. While I’ve had decent success as an Indie writer, my goal has always been to become a well-recognized author around the world. As the party planners for the ‘Historically Famous Author’ parties don’t necessarily care whether my wife and grandmother really love my work, it is important to have a successful platform to build upon.
So, is it more important to work on my writing, my platform, my family, or my mastery of the Fallen Dog yoga positions? I wish I could say that I use every moment in pursuit of either happiness or success, but the truth is that I probably waste just as much as I spend fruitfully. Since I have a dream, but live within the real world where I’m only given 24 hours a day and hopefully another 40 years of life, my belief is that I have to find a balance (and not the Sleeping Dog kind) that will help me find both happiness and success.
I try to give the taxpayers (who happen to still be willing to pay my monthly bills) an honest day’s work everyday. I try to spend quality time with my wife and three daughters. I try to get the proper amount of sleep, relaxation, and exercise (though I seem to fail on all three more than any other area in my life). I try to keep up with platform building and social media. AND, I try to make every minute of my writing time count.
For those of you who want to succeed in today’s publishing world, my suggestion is to find a way to practice some form of Literary Yoga. Spend time with your job, your family, your platform building, and your writing. Don’t let any of them overwhelm the other, but never neglect any of them either.
