As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m not doing a great job these days of posting here.  Life, ya know?

And I’m not really doing much to promo my short stories I self-pubbed either.  I put most of them on Countdown promos this month but didn’t actually do much to tell people about them. (Ooops.)

And yet…I just looked at my blog stats and there are hits for pretty much every single day.   Not tons.  But close to as many as I used to get when I blogged daily.  I think it’s because at this point I have 400+ posts up and they pop up enough in search terms that I get a little traffic.

It’s the benefit of having posted so much so early.

I can assure you that my “for readers” blog does not show that same pattern.  I never had that steady series of posts on it when it started, so I never gained momentum that allowed the blog to move forward without me.

Interestingly, I’m seeing the same on the short stories.  Not a ton of sales (not by any means), but sales.  With no real promotion behind it.  They’re out there and people are just kind of stumbling upon them.  Which works for now.

Since self-pubbing I have made money off of my writing every single month.

(Sooo much less than I make in my day job, but it let me talk about those stories in this blog and I’m getting paid for my writing.  So, yay.)

I think both of those are an argument in favor of putting in some heavy effort up front.  Whether that’s blogging or writing and subbing a bunch of short stories or writing a novel and subbing it to a bunch of agents/editors.

Whatever it is, put in that effort up front and it’ll help to carry you through the slow points.

(I also have two stories still out at markets and intend to always have at least one out.  If either one sells that would be a trigger to bust my butt to capitalize on that first sale.)

For now, I’m still not writing.  I’m doing lots of thinking about a couple of novel ideas, but I have yet to sit down and start typing.  I’m okay with that.  Writing is what I do for my soul, not my paycheck.

(At least for now.)

I don’t feel blocked so much as on pause, but I thought I’d share a good post on writer’s block by Hayden Trenholm.

A quote:

So the first thing I would say to those of you who find they no longer are writing as much as they did or they want, examine your life. Do you have a new job or has your existing one become busier or more interesting. New relationship? New baby in the house? New city to learn? You probably have enough on your plate without beating yourself up about not writing. So quit it. Enjoy the other creative aspects of living and come back to writing when you are ready.

So, yes.  This.  Right now my life is demanding my attention.  New project, new(ish) city, long hours, puppy that is only getting older every day (but really does give me plenty of time to write because she likes to sleep for hours on end…)  That all means that in my free time I don’t want to write right now.

And that’s okay.

Not forever.  No.

But for a few months.