I said, in the very first post on this brand new blog of mine, that some posts would take the form of diary entries. This is one of them. I like the idea of them, to be honest. As someone who spends a LOT of time alone, holed away in my writing cave with only my Spotify playlists and a vivid imagination for company, it's sometimes nice, and a little necessary, to just, you know, get your thoughts out there. No matter how random or pointless they may be. Sometimes it's helpful. And, you never know, there may actually be a day when one of these posts could prove useful to someone else. I've been doing this writing thing for almost twelve years now, both indie and traditionally published, and I've got a lot of s**t to share on my experiences of both sides so, feel free to ask any questions.
OK, what's happening today, then? Well, as usual, this day's begun like every other day begins - I check my, quite honestly, utterly depressing Amazon sales figures. But, it's not exactly surprising that it feels like I'm going backwards rather than forwards in the grand writing scheme of things. I took time out. Stopped using social media. People forget who you are, of course they do. So, in some respects, it's like I'm having to start all over again but that's the price you pay. And once you accept that you were, quite obviously, never going to hit the heady heights of the best seller rankings, you just get on with it. So what if only two people (yes, 2!) bought my latest release. 👇
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| The book that could do with a few more readers... not that I'm begging or anything... |
At the time it was incredibly upsetting. You spend so long writing these stories, making sure they're the best they can be, so that people, hopefully, enjoy them, and to see on release day that only 2 people bought copies, well, it's gut wrenching. No other words for it. And, yeah, for a while I wondered if it was worth wasting my time writing all these other stories that I've got living in my head if no one was going to buy them. But, I'm a sucker for punishment. Of course I'm going to write them! And I might try and put myself out there a bit more, I'm just bloody awful at the whole social media thing. Mainly because my life is so incredibly boring, I mean, who wants to know that I, basically get up, walk the dog, have a bowl of cereal while watching 'King of Queens' repeats on Channel 4 before cleaning the house, walking the dog again: spend the afternoon (trying to) write before making the tea, grabbing a quick shower, and watching TV all night before going to bed only to wake up and repeat the cycle! Not exactly going to take Tik Tok by storm, is it? And, OK, maybe that was a slight exaggeration (only slight, mind) of how boring my life is, but I really don't have anything that interesting to share at the minute. And the fact I loathe having my picture taken, can't take a decent selfie to save my life, and hate being the centre of attention (I'm the world's worst Leo, I swear, but that's because I was born 2 weeks early and should have really been a Virgo, which is much more me) means that social media and me really don't mix all that well. But I'm trying.
So, back to today. Is there anything even vaguely exciting happening? In a word, no. After I've written this post I'll be going back to that brand new project I started last week. Well, to be honest, I started it last year but then put it to one side - along with the 8 other manuscripts I started in lockdown and never had the motivation to finish, until now - but it's full steam ahead on that particular story now. It's a new biker book. A dark romantic suspense set in Denmark, hence the name of the biker club in the story - The Viking Bandits. And, this book will be the first to be written under a new pen name, which I'm not revealing yet but I absolutely LOVE the name! It's the name I'll be writing all my much more darker romances under from now on. I just wanted to try something new, and if it doesn't work, well, I gave it a go. But, fingers crossed, something might come of it.
Anyway, I think I've probably rambled on enough for one day, and there are no photographs to make this post even mildly more interesting so, I'll love and leave you for one day. But, you know, if anyone out there feels the need for something new to read, there's a link on the left hand side of this blog that will take you straight to my book page on Amazon. 👈 And if I can't do some shameless self-promotion on my own blog, then where can I do it? 😜 Have a great Monday, people! 💖
Michelle x
