Smut & Scones

I've got so many good books in my pile these days, and maybe its because I was just loving the smell of one of the paperbacks but I was prompted to put them all in a list and share. :) 1. Egg Drop Dead, by Vivien Chien. The 5th in a series of cozy mysteries set in a Chinese noodle house with a Chinese-American main character and an amazing cast of POC. The books are super entertaining, well written, and I love that they are set somewhere interesting instead of the same small super-white midwest bakery, etc. 2. Modern Tarot, by Michelle Tea. I've been wanting to slowly get back into tarot again, and this guide to learning the cards is, as it says, modern, inclusive, and fun. 3. Don't Keep Your Day Job, by Cathy Heller. I've listened to Heller's podcast by the same name for a while, and this book is so far such a beautiful distillation of the message she shares there -- you are enough, you matter, your gifts matter, go out and do the thing that is on your he...

I am feeling shitty about myself. I had a Friday that was actually pretty good in most respects, but it ended with a run in with a narcissist in which I did the one thing you should never do and that's respond. I felt the need to defend myself, because having my work called into question, my integrity, is a peeve of mine. But this never ends well. I knew I shouldn't have responded, but I did it anyway. And now I am trying not to spend the whole weekend being preemptively stressed out by the anticipated reaction. There may not even be a reaction. But I shouldn't have even played into it. Next time, I know better. I will stand strong in my own confidence in myself and remind myself that I can't control what other people choose to think or what their perceptions may be. I have the product of my work on my side, and anyone who can't see that isn't worth arguing with in the first place. That said, its making it difficult to get into a creative headspace tonight, es...

I have been out of sync with myself lately. When I tune into it, I can tell. Even when I've been writing -- I've been trying to force specific stories or types of books, series, writing things that weren't really what I wanted to write because I thought I needed to in order to create a successful career as an indie author. The irony is that trying to force myself down certain specific paths was keeping me from writing anything. Which certainly isn't the way to create a successful writing career. I'm fine with writing to market, but I still need to write like me, and that's what I wasn't doing. I was trying to write like someone else, create a series like someone else, and I can't do that. All that does it keep me all up in my head about whether I'm doing it "right" or if this will be what the market wants, etc. I need to focus on writing a good story, first. Because without that the rest doesn't matter. I have been reading Cathy...

I don't know why this took so long to click, after hearing the same message over and over again from the different podcasts and blogs and books I consume, but here goes -- Don't worry about doing the whole big thing, just do whatever the next small action is. Don't focus on "writing a book" or "starting a business," focus on doing whatever the next super small step is in service of that goal. Writing one sentence. Emailing one person. The smallest, tiniest action that you can take next, do that one small thing. And then whatever the next thing is. And it's all those little things that build up and create a big thing. This thought has been incredibly helpful to me in the last 24 hours, as I've been sitting here stuck on the stress of wanting to build an author empire for myself that replaces my day job and lets me live like a queen on book sales. Guess how many words that helped me write. But keeping my eye on the absolute closest next mar...