Books, Burnout, and The Power of Encouraging Words

While 2024 has already been a slog, that trend didn't start with the new year. I've honestly been going 10+ hours a day since Fall 2023 trying to stay on top of my deadlines, and to get fresh stuff out there for all my current and future readers to check out, and it has been a huge strain on me as a creator. That's the nature of the game, but those hours take a toll on you, and you have to start making decisions about where your time and attention are going to be spent when you're looking at your bills.

That's the reason I haven't started a new novel yet. I love writing them, but most folks who know me and my work know me as a TTRPG writer, or maybe a short story/audio creator. With funds as tight as they are it's hard to justify pouring another year of work into a book that only folks who see me at conventions will read... but it doesn't take much to get that fire lit one more time.

All I need, apparently, is seeing someone excited about one of my silly cat mysteries, and my brain is off to the races!

A little encouragement goes a LONG way...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

The Hard Boiled Cat, and A Steampunk Expo

For those who didn't see my updates (as the algorithm is a fickle thing), I spent the past weekend at the Chicago Steampunk Expo. It was my first time at this particular event, and it was a lot of work to figure out the new hotel space, come up with fresh booth set up, and to deal with all the bumps in the road that come with figuring out an event you've never worked before. However, I got it done, and I even managed to sell a couple of books while I was there.

I'd expected to sell copies of my new TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, but by the end of the event, I'd only managed to move a single copy... however, I sold all the copies I'd brought of my Hard Boiled Cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats. That's not saying much, as I only had a few copies of each, but something happened that I wanted to recount.

Also, get your copy if you haven't yet!

During setup I and Alice Liddell had a lovely boothmate, J.L. Barnes (whom you should definitely check out) who makes lovely artwork of adorable animals having small adventures. And once the two of us got our booths set up and introduced ourselves, she picked up my book, looked it over, and then handed me cash for it. The dealer's hall hadn't even opened to the public yet, and I'd already moved a copy of Leo's debut novel.

And she wasn't the only one. Practically everyone who came to the booth that expressed an interest in books took one look at Leo's novels before they asked for a pitch. Almost everyone who heard the pitch grabbed copies, and I didn't have any more by early afternoon of day two. And for folks who don't vend at cons, that's pretty unusual... most folks who buy books wait till the last day before swooping in and making their final selections, particularly for indie authors.

It wasn't just the sales, though those were very nice. It was the interactions I had with those readers. It was the looks on people's faces when they heard there was a gangland noir series about a Maine Coon heavy who gets mixed up with the raccoon Mafia, who has to make deals with New York subway rats, and who has to protect a kitten whose mama goes missing while teaching him how to be a proper cat.

Real talk, readers, I'd been burnt out as a novelist. With our loss of first Eric Flint, and then his publishing company, and my books spending a year in limbo before they got back onto the market having lost all of their momentum, I was exhausted. A novel generally takes a year of time for me to get down, and with everything arrayed as an uphill battle, I was prepared to just keep writing blogs, TTRPGs, short stories, and audio dramas for the foreseeable future, reserving more novels for a time when either my books grew a large enough audience to justify that kind of work, or I could afford to get back to such a large project.

I didn't realize how burnt out I was until complete strangers told me they thought my book was really fun and creative, then handed me money for it... because apparently that's all it took to light my pilot again!

Chapter One: A Mouse, and My Cheese Burger

Now, I'm not going to immediately break ground on a new novel tonight. I've got too many balls in the air, and too many projects with deadlines to take up yet more space I don't have. However, I wanted to remind folks that if you're tired, and everything feels like a pointless slog, then you're probably way more burnt out than you think. So if you're down on your work, and you feel like you're just shouting into the void, talk to someone who isn't familiar with your stories. Someone who isn't part of your regular audience, and who hasn't heard your pitch before.

You'll likely find their reaction is far more excited, and that can be the fuel you need to get back to the grindstone!

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Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!