After the fire of 2013, which wiped me out mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally, I had taken a break from my literary career to get my kids' and my life together.
We were homeless so I had reasons to actually try to concentrate on things. I didn't come out with a book for a whole year, but I wasn't feeling bad. In 2011, I had released seven books that year, so I made up for it in advance.
Still, it hurt my literary career and I lost a lot of money and following because of that.
So now I need to re-introduce myself to many, consistently show up and then introduce myself to my new readers
Even when I jumped back in the literary game, I wasn't building a following. I was working on saving my literary organization and building up more influence there. Offline Speaking events, writing articles, doing workshops, getting engagement and really pushing my Facebook group to be more talkative.
I wrote very little and in the past seven years I've only released ten books. That's very low for me when in the past I've done at least four to six minimum.
Now that the kids are out of the house, the marriage is calming down, I'm finding I have free time to write and I want to get back to it. I need to get back to it. I have a lot of stories in my head that need to get out and no day is promised.
Literally.
This year has been tough emotionally. From not just Covid, but from losing my mom and BFF, dealing with other friends passing away and leaving, but the disconnect I have with reality when I cannot be around it because of Covid (i.e.: social gatherings, distancing and not enjoying the outside). It's made me stronger spiritually and then I started thinking a lot about the fans I do have and really needing to show them appreciation.
With blessings, I was still able to go to my job everyday - at home - and keep our way of life going with my husband. (He's working from home too so we see A LOT of each other.)
I remade a plan midyear to get myself situated to make a decent income from my writing again. I'm calling these my 4th quarter challenges because there's no way i'm going to get all this done in a month or two. A video will follow soon too in my FB Group to discuss these on the 25th of September.
