Advice From a Debut With Multiple Books

By Adrienne Giordano

Like most authors in their sophomore year, I can honestly say my debut year taught me more than I can possibly put to paper. A few of those things surprised me. The first being that I was shocked at how much I didn’t know.

And I’m not just talking about editing lessons. Nope. I’m talking about non-craft related things that ever so slowly caught up to me and clubbed me. What are some of those things? Here are my top three:

1.     Time is Sometimes the Enemy

During my debut year, time was my enemy. I was lucky enough to be a debut author who had five releases in thirteen months. My first book launched in July of 2011 and by August of 2012, my fifth book had been released. Of course, I didn’t have to write five books in a year. When I sold the first one, I had two others written and had an idea for a fourth. In between, I was asked by my publisher to write a novella for an anthology.

I remember one month where I was in three different rounds of edits on three different books while writing a fourth.  I literally carved my day into time chunks. I worked on one book for a set period of time, then the next, then the next. And I was brutal about my start and stop times. If I said I’d work on Man Law for two hours and two hours came, I stopped and moved on to A Just Deception. It was hard, and I didn’t like having a hard stop, but it was the only way to get all the edits done on time.

Let me just mention that in between all of this, I had to get my website revamped, get my Twitter and Facebook pages up and running, create author accounts on all the various social networking sites and create a newsletter. Prior to signing my first contract, it never occurred to me that the marketing end of being published is a full-time job.

When I added the time I spent on marketing to my writing related tasks, I realized I needed to clone myself. With cloning out of the question, I forced myself to decide how much writing time I was willing to sacrifice to complete my non-writing related tasks. My initial thought was that I would never be done with marketing. Ever. Based on my limited experience, it seemed there would always be something marketing related to do. Once I gave in to that idea, I was able to allocate a timeframe that would protect my writing time.

After all, the best marketing will only go so far when there’s not a next book to sell.

2.     Stop and Smell the Roses

With all the insanity leading up to my first release, I realized I’d forgotten to take a moment each day to absorb the fact that I was about to become a published author. I was so busy getting my work done, I hadn’t slowed down enough to take it all in. Sure, I’d have more releases, but there would only be one debut.  I’d waited years to be a debut author and I was letting it slide by in a blur.

From that day forward I took time every day, even if it was only a minute or two, to close my eyes and savor what I’d accomplished.

Which leads me to the third and what I think just might be the most important lesson I learned during my debut year.

3.     Recharge

After my hectic year, I plowed right into two new single titles. I kept telling myself I could pound out another two books while doing the marketing for my latest release. No problem. If I survived the previous thirteen months, I could do anything. Right?

Wrong.

I wouldn’t necessarily call what happened to me writer’s block. I’d categorize it more as self-doubt. In short, I became convinced every word I put on the page was utter crap. My critique partners all assured me the work was good, but that self-doubt, it’s a nasty sucker. It kept whispering in my ear and tearing me down.

Finally, while on the phone with my agent one day, I told her what I was feeling.  She spent the next hour convincing me to take some time off. To put the manuscripts aside and let myself rest. She told me to go to a movie or do something that relaxes me.

I may have been skeptical, but I was also desperate to enjoy writing again, so I did what she advised. I read a few books, went to the gym, met friends for lunch and enjoyed time with my family minus my laptop and phone.  I lost precious writing time on a contracted book, but I considered it something I needed to do to reclaim my writing confidence.

Within a week, the writing itch returned and I took to my desk again. What I learned from this experience was to make sure I’m giving my mind time to rest.  Sometimes simply going for a walk or standing in the sun for a few minutes is all it takes to recharge and keep my creative juices flowing.

And when you’re a writer, keeping those juices flowing is a fairly important thing.

What about you? What do you do to keep your creativity soaring?

Bio:
Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and mystery.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog and Lady Jane's Salon-Naperville, a reading series dedicated to romantic fiction. For more information on Adrienne's books please visit www.AdrienneGiordano.com. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano. For information on Adrienne’s street team, Dangerous Darlings, go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/dangerousdarlings.