Positivity for Writers #3: Don't Let Others Dictate Your Pace

I can't believe it's already week three of the positivity posts! I hope you've found them helpful. I'd love your feedback. :)

--Raine

With the current culture of ebooks, indie-publishing, and small-press publishers, the pace at which it seems authors want to (or more often, need to) write has really changed. Growing up, I had a favorite Harlequin author, Jessica Steele, and on the very best of years, when her releases fell just right, she put out two books in a calendar year. That was fast. That was insanely fast.

Now, it's almost as if two books a year is standard, if not a little on the slow side. I know authors that release every two months. I know authors that seem to release every month. I know authors who do this *and* have full-time jobs. Is your head spinning yet?

I admit it, I lost myself to the pace for a while. People cheered me on. You can do it! Write more! Write faster! And so I did, and I felt good. Faster, faster, faster... Until my fastest wasn't fast enough. And then I didn't feel good at all.

Between April and December 2014, I will have put out six works. But those works were percolating for YEARS and many were in various stages of drafting and editing before 2014! They just happened to get clumped together and published in a relatively short span of time. So what happens in 2015...?

A very dear friend gave me a piece of advice that I wrote down in journals, on my hand, on scraps of paper, anywhere I might stumble upon it. It's, well, pretty much everywhere. I have to keep it nearby because if I don't, it slips right out of my brain.

Simply put, she said:

Your Creator didn't give you a lifetime's worth of stories, so that you could write them all today.

Write at the pace that works best for you. If a release a month WORKS for you and you are happy--keep doing that! But don't feel like you have to. We want you to take the time you need to craft the story in your heart with love and care. (Except in November: November is NaNoWriMo. Mwahaha!)

Remember: this is not a race, my friends. It's an art. :)

Until next time!
Raine O'Tierney