Finding joy in resilience (and yes also, still a bit overwhelmed sometimes): My 2023 recap as a self-published author... (Part 1)
Rollercoaster of emotions, anyone?
As I was reflecting on my 2023 year as a self-published author, I smiled.
No. Not like, Plato The Dog in this picture but close.
I did smile. I am. Right now. Writing this.
Ups and Downs
And yet there were definite downs this year in my self-publishing career, such as days without royalties, the need to remember that my books, like me, aren’t for everyone, and some of my profit being dependent on a bonus that might not last.
Not every day was sunshine and happy songs. I still wondered if I’m doing enough. Making enough. Working hard enough. But overall, I made so much progress in 2023 both in my career and in my approach.
When I say not everything was easy….There were also challenging moments in my personal life, including a biopsy at the beginning of the year that still makes it hard to feel some part of my armpit, bidding farewell to a dear friend, and dealing with the ongoing aftermath symptoms of cancer treatments that improve but never quite return to normal. Whatever normal even means.
I feel like in 2023, I made some progress in creating a new normal and embracing it while still finding ways to continuously feel like I’m making progress. Basically finding a way so that I don’t always feel like I’m failing at an arbitrary benchmark. One I most likely set myself.
Those last lines could be about my writing career, too.
More reasons to smile? I’m having fun writing (including writing this article) and I’m making a low five-figure profit (with my fiction and bilingual books - definitely not with this article :-)). It took a lot of work to get there. There have been ups and downs, including years when I didn't make a profit from writing.
My financial goal is to pay the mortgage with my writing income, and I’m close. Since goals often shift, my next objective is to save more for retirement. However, having evolving goals doesn't mean I can't enjoy the process.
The Chemical Engineer, my husband, says he can see my career flourishing. His exact words were, 'We're on the cusp of something.' And yes, it’s 'we' because, while I'm the one writing, this career, which is now my part-time job, is possible thanks not only to his job but also to his support and belief in me. We both acknowledge that I play a role in his successful career too.
We're a team.
All this is to say that I consider myself lucky.
And also overwhelmed sometimes. Both can be true, right?
Because that part-time job is almost a full-time job and it’s been a roller-coaster.
The beginning of the year was tougher in terms of publishing and writing. As I mentioned, I had another biopsy in January 2023 (an axillary excisional biopsy). The biopsy didn’t show a recurrence of lymphoma and wasn’t malignant. *HAPPY DANCE*. But it took much more out of me than I thought it would. And also made it hard to even write for a bit. Both physically and mentally.
Even though I managed, this time around, to not let it derail everything (easier to do when the results are good). While I managed the anxiety better, it did trigger another OCD bout. Those pathways just know when to become more active. It wasn’t as bad as after my stem cell transplant, but still, enough that the tools I had from my past OCD therapy sessions felt out of reach. And I ended up starting therapy again for it—which really helped. My therapist has been trained on an additional treatment for OCD and this has been a great foundation.
This makes me want to write another author’s note and a few more lines into # The Leftover Bride as Sorcha deals with OCD in that steamy romcom. Just like one of my main characters in my pen name deals with the aftermath of cancer treatments. This one had to be under my pen name, because it hits close to home. And I still want that distance—art may get inspiration from life, and I hope resonate with others, but it’s still art. I don’t know (I think) anyone who works for the mafia, for example.
I had to come to grip this year that, yes, I do get more tired than I did before, even three years after my last maintenance immunotherapy infusion following my stem cell transplant. And I can arrange my day to accommodate that. I know, depending on how long or well I slept, whether or not I might need a nap and I can be kind to myself.
So, yes, I do get more tired and part of my armpit still feels weird.
But I can write.
And in 2023? Oh, I wrote.
So many words. I wrote so many words. I don’t know how many because I don’t keep track. I know.
I know, I know, I know.
But I can tell you that I published:
One novella: Once Upon A Christmas Eve;
One full-length novel: # Most Eligible Scrooge;
Two full-length novels: pen name (those ones were already published as Kindle Vella stories and I edited them);
128 episodes Kindle Vella stories across 4 stories.
And one bilingual book.
Basically, I wrote three full-length novels and one novella. (the math works here because the two full-length novels I published were written in 2022 and in 2023 as part of my Kindle Vella episodes - Last year I had written about 80 episodes, starting in March so I wrote about two more episodes per month.
I don’t have all the answers on how to find joy or contentment or fulfillment in resilience. All I know is that I found a lot of that joy was in my writing, losing myself in the story and the characters.
Finding joy in my writing
Writing those feelings into my stories has helped me. That’s why, I think, I write angsty romance under my pen name. And that’s also why I write steamy romcoms. I need both the laughter of my romcoms and the angst of my pen name romance novels.
And maybe that’s why I’m also starting to write a book that has been on the back of my mind for years. Miss Me, Miss Me Not has been brewing for so long. I wasn’t ready to write it back after my transplant or even before I had cancer. The things I put Nadia through in Fear Me, Fear Me Not? That was a lot and Miss Me Miss Me Not is partly from her point-of-view, so I have to put myself in her shoes…It’s not like method acting/method writing since I don’t stay in character the entire time, but I do put myself in the shoes of my character emotionally-speaking very often.
And let me tell you, Nadia is heartbroken, so angry and confused. And again, so angry. There’s a scene with Erin—her best friend—that had me all choked up writing it.
I feel like I’m now ready to give the characters justice, to pour emotions into them that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same way before.
Plus, I did get better at writing even when the fear and anger can be overwhelming. I think because years of therapy during cancer treatments to deal with *that* anxiety has given me tools to lean into the “okay” moments and to make the best of them. Just to be clear, it wasn’t easy. And there are moments when I think I can run (figuratively and also literally) and I stumble.
What did I discover about my writing?
I leaned in into my process. And that brought me more joy, too.
I wanted to compare my process to my cat. Sometimes cuddly, sometimes hiding, sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night. But when I write more books at the same time? It’s hiding less. It’s more cuddly.
Because see, what I discovered is that writing more than one book at a time is *exactly* how I (a) get more done; (b) have more fun writing.
Susan Dennard actually talked about it in her recent Substack post
and I felt seen because this is somewhat my process, too. I need time to think about certain plot points and I need to be in the zone. I do have some projects that I don’t let simmer as much (my Vella stories because I want to update them weekly). But going from one story to another has made spending time with all those characters so … enjoyable and fun. I can get lost in each of their stories and when the process needs some more time, it’s okay.
I may have gone overboard with projects at some point though. I think it was in September, when I had: # Most Eligible Scrooge, a short story called Trick, Treating or Love, and Two Vella Stories. That was a lot. Yes, maybe too much.
I mean granted, right now I have: # Dear Santa, With Love, Miss Me Miss Me Not, A New Year’s Eve Like No Other and one Vella story (plus one I’m copy editing into a full-length novel). But two of the books mentioned above are novellas. And A New Year’s Eve Like No Other is my low pressure, update once a month story, without any pre-order date.
I can write fast.
I don’t always do, but I can. It depends on the process I put in place. How I prepare for my writing session. Where I am in the story.
I sometimes can get 1000 words in a 15-minute sprint by using Write Or Die (I wish they had called this differently - not going to lie) and knowing what I’m about to write. Knowing what I’m about to write means that I already know the characters very well—I know their reactions, their triggers, their emotions in the scene. It also means I know where everything is in the scene. I think about the setting and what the characters may smell, feel, touch, hear and see so that I can ground the scene at least a little during that sprint.
Once I have that in my mind, I start the sprint. I actually start with an eight-minute sprint and usually try to get at least 500 words during that time. I usually write at least 600 and I sometimes keep going until I have the full scene. And sometimes, I put a goal of 1000 words in 15 minutes and most of the time, I write those words.
I usually write about 2000 to 2500 words per day Monday through Thursday. I start work early. When I wake up. Which is about 5am to 5.30 am. My early morning work is usually administrative-related, and I start writing around 8.30 a.m.
During the afternoon, I usually focus on the business and administrative side of my writing business and do things around the house. On the rare days where I get 4000 words or even 5000 words of just write, write, write (it does happen), I most likely won’t write the next day.
I won’t write, because that really tires me and the creative well needs to be refilled. Because I want or need to do something administrative. Or, I will write, but it will be one of my three newsletters (or this Substack, now).
There are things I still need to work on—I mean, we’re all work-in-progress, too, right?
Why oh why do I check my royalty dashboard in the morning? I’m not doing any ads for the royalties I check - and yet first thing, I check how my royalties are doing. Granted, if it’s low, I might try a tik tok video or two to maybe remind readers my books exist and yes, I do see some conversion (even with videos at 200 views), but most of the time, it’s not super productive.
Make sure I don’t forget to put myself first. Because yes, sometimes, it does feel like “writing as if I’m running out of time”—not often, but sometimes. And when the end of the year comes and I realize that I’m pushing some appointments, or some exercise because I didn’t do “enough” or because I am too tired, it’s not helping me.
Feeling less isolated while writing.
One of the things that really helped in feeling less alone writing and in getting those words is joining The Office (no, not the TV show), but the Zoom working space with other writers from the Write Better Faster Patreon1.
Because writing can be such a lonely adventure. Isolating. And after everything2, this has been such a gamechanger to “go” to the office every morning. I’m usually there from 8.30am to 11.30am.
This was the year with…
This was the year with the most pre-orders for one of my books in English. (I’ll be sharing data in my data 2023 recap post very soon).
This was the year I learned more about what works for me.
This was the year I listened to my husband about not trying out certain things just because of FOMO and I think this definitely helped keeping me in profit-territory.
This was the year I took the Strengths For Writers and the Write, Better, Faster class.
This was the year I did my first in-person event since 2017 (*am I tearing up as I’m writing this?* Maybe.)
This was the year I made low five-figures profit.
This was the year I started a subscription for my fiction (only for followers now - but will launch paid tier soon).
This was the year I had so much fun writing. Where I found joy in resilience.
It doesn’t mean the words weren’t harder to come on some days, even with different projects, but they were easier, because I could hop from one project to one another, making each of them, I think, stronger in a way. I find joy in the process and I let myself feel more with the characters. And yes, sometimes, that means tearing up as I write, but it also means giving them their happily-ever-after.
If you’re interested about the most practical aspects like: where did my profit come from, my wheel (with a breakdown of my sales), info about my Facebook ads and TikTok marketing, how Kindle Vella has pushed my earnings up… stay tuned, I’ll do a recap of the financial aspects very soon.
In the meantime, how do you find joy in resilience?
Becca Syme’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beccasyme/posts
And by “everything”, I mean: the treatments I had between 2017 and 2020, isolation from the stem cell transplant and then COVID, and not having a job where I interacted with people and not “seeing” people for so long…