It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for a new posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

re-evaluate verb evaluate again or differently

evaluate verb form an idea of the amount, number, or value of; assess

Oxford English Dictionary

goal noun the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result

Oxford English Dictionary

resolution noun a firm decision to do or not to do something

Oxford English Dictionary

Re-evaluation

Last April I admitted that blogging has started to feel like work. Probably because it had turned into a job of its own.

Blogging schedule 2020:
Mondays: Book Reviews (or book club posts about own books)
First Wednesday of month: IWSG post
Third Wednesday of month: Author toolbox post
Other Wednesdays: Adventures with Rottweilers or folklore posts
April: blogging every day except Sundays (folklore posts for A-Z challenge)

In 2021, I stopped doing Wednesday Rottweiler and folklore posts, instead posting more stuff about my books and book reviews of indie books. And yet, I still felt blah about the whole thing.

So I stopped accepting review requests with the hope that taking some reading pressure off would help. I love reading, but sometimes you need to be in a certain mood to enjoy a specific genre.

It didn’t help.

So I did some mindset and business training with James Wedmore. And I realised what was wrong: My day job made me happier and was more fulfilling than my writing job.

Tragedy. Travesty. I had to fix this. So I looked at what each job entailed. (I’m only sharing the writing job stuff with you.)

Writing Job

Social media: Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram (2 hours a week)
Blogging: reading and reviewing books, writing advice posts, folklore posts (69 posts a year, each post taking approximately 2 to 6 hours to write depending on content)

That’s approximately 480 hours a year I spend on social media and blogging. And if a year only has 8760 hours… I’m using about 6% of my year on this part of the job that doesn’t bring me joy. And if we’re being honest, it doesn’t do much for the bottom-line either.

Then there’s the monthly newsletter: it’s fun to write, I give away book 2 in my Faery Tales series to get people to opt in, it’s an engaged audience who actually want to hear about my books and writing process, and it generates sales. And it’s not even half an hour a month to write. (All the systems are in place to get people to find my newsletter and sign up.)

The training with James made me think a lot about what I was doing and why.

Non-fiction: I have a boatload of non-fiction articles on the blog and books to go with it. Why? I’m a Dark Fantasy author, not a non-fiction guru. I’ll be keeping my books and blogposts live, but I probably won’t be adding to them (especially not the books).

Drilling down on the blogging and social media stuff, I needed to know what my end goal is. My why. I needed to figure out the whole point.

So going with that, my blogposts and podcast should focus on folklore. Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest should follow their lead.

After all, when you read “Unseen” (if you download it when joining my newsletter) that is exactly what you get: a Dark Fantasy book filled with folklore. You also get links to the folklore posts explaining the folklore used in the book in-depth.

That means that I’m changing my blogging schedule. I’ll still be taking four months off a year (the months with the Solstice and Equinox), I’ll be blogging every first Wednesday of the month (IWSG day!) and I’ll be doing an A-Z of Faerie every April. If something comes up (say a book club post for a new release), I’ll post it on a Wednesday. Guest posts and blog tours will be fit in on my IWSG post as appropriate. As for book reviews, I’ll always be reading, I’ll see if I can fit it into either my IWSG posts if it’s a book by a member or publish them on Wednesdays.

It might not sound that much different from what I’ve been doing, but I believe it will make a world of difference to me. (Blogging only on Wednesdays instead of on Mondays and Wednesdays, and not blogging every Wednesday to boot.)

So that’s the re-evaluation part. As for goals, I have many.

Goals

I really want to read more this year and tackle my ever-growing TBR. I already did a readathon last year and I’m planning on doing more this year.

Writing wise, I have some crazy goals.

Irascible Immortals

• Finish series.
• Have entire series in Afrikaans.
• Have entire series (both languages) as audiobooks.
• Do blog tour (do proper marketing).

Faery Tales

• Finish series.
• Have entire series in Afrikaans.
• Have entire series (both languages) as audiobooks.
• Have boxsets in all formats (both languages).
• Do blog tour, library readings, etc. (do proper marketing).

Other

• Magic at Midnight as audiobook (Afrikaans and English).
• Stories on Scrolls as audiobook (Afrikaans and English).
• Pick a writing project (series or stand alone) and finish it — do all publishing and marketing stuff.
• Take part in at least two anthologies.

Seeing as I do most of the work myself (writing the book, translating the book, narrating the book, etc.), it is actually a lot of work. I hope that by cutting back on time spent online will increase my productivity — it is a mindset thing, after all. I do realise, though, that with the day job I took on last January and the second job I took on in October (one has to eat, after all), my time will be even more limited than before. After all, the plan to finish up the Irascible Immortals series last year (all goals stated above) couldn’t happen. And let’s not get into health stuff.

Resolution

Easy: spend less time online and on things that don’t bring me joy.

It’s a lot, I know. What are your New Year’s Resolutions? Any writing goals you’d like to share?