Tag Archives: procrastination

How marketing your writing can be like surviving high school P.E.

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When I was in high school in Florida, we had physical education class every day.

I was bad at it.

I coped well enough with track, aerobics, gymnastics, and even volleyball (only because I was a fairly reliable server), but all the other team sports were nightmares. I could be counted on to let down my team. Softball was especially painful. I hated waiting in the outfield, desperately hoping no fly balls would come my way.

But then I figured out how to get through it: volunteer to be the catcher.

Was I a good catcher? Hell, no. (Not until I watched Bull Durham years later did I learn that catchers are supposed to be strategizing with the pitcher! Who knew?) But nobody else wanted to do it, what with the strained posture and ungainly equipment and chance of catching a ball or a bat the hard way. So they were happy to let me do it.

Sandra Hutchison as an uncoordinated teenager holding two inflatable pool floats

This may be the closest I ever came to being any kind of athlete. Even as a teenager, I looked like a librarian.

And it was SO MUCH BETTER. I didn’t have time to pray no ball would come. OF COURSE it came. Repeatedly!

I spent the whole inning catching and throwing. I had no time to get nervous. Hell, it was even fun.

Yes, once in a while a foul ball popped up or a run headed home and gave me the chance to disappoint my team, but I couldn’t stop and brood about it. Because there was another pitch.

After remembering this recently, I realized that’s the approach I need to take to marketing. Especially the newsletter part, which I’ve been procrastinating literally for years now.

Like a lot of authors, I hate marketing my own books, especially to people I know. Because my mailing list is so small (especially now!), a lot of people on it are people I know. And whether they know me or not, I fear I will irritate them or bore them or look desperate or tacky or clueless, or (most likely now) get marked as “spam” by people with no memory they signed up for my newsletter years ago.

To be fair, I have also repeatedly run into bewildering tech issues. Let me tell you, bewildering tech issues are THE BOMB if you’re looking to put off something uncomfortable. (I ran into more trying to publish this very post, which is why it’s out a day late.)

Restarting the blog last year was my first step in overcoming what had become a case of near-paralysis on the marketing side. Could I write something every single month that at least some people were going to read? Yes, I could! (Okay, always on the last possible day of the month, and I just missed February, as noted above.)

Would this renewed blog ever be brilliant or make any difference to my book sales? Not so far. But it does, at least, suggest that I’m still in the game. This is something, especially if you publish new novels as slowly as I do.

But the mailing list is the thing I really need to do. So… those few of you still on my list at this point and also reading this, which may be nobody … you are about to start hearing from me regularly, on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, with something shorter than this blog ever is.

(Check your promotion or spam folder if you think you’re on the list and don’t get anything – or sign up again at the bottom of this page.)

This frequency is not what I promised when you signed up. So if you find this annoying, I cordially and absolutely without angst invite you to unsubscribe. It’s actually ideal, if you’re not interested. Mailing lists above a certain size cost an author money, after all. (Yet another reason to procrastinate!) And you can reliably hear about new releases or promotions if you follow me on Bookbub or Amazon.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about this blog. I enjoy this format, but it takes serious effort to get a post published, and the mailing list will be my top priority this year. I also don’t want to take away too much time from novel writing. (Novel #8 is finally under way!) So that’s something I’ll be thinking about a little more.

As always, I’m happy to hear your opinions if you have any. (Also, I’m curious if you have your own ways of psyching yourself into doing the stuff you find anxiety-producing!)

And now … I need to go play some ball.

A burst of productivity for the new year

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January saw me racing through a bunch of things on my list, especially during the week I had hoped to spend with my parents, but had to postpone, because COVID. Part of it was giving myself permission to not worry about the writing. Part of it was if I didn’t get it done I knew it was only going to get worse.

Like the old boiler that was trying to kill me. A new energy-efficient, non-CO-spewing combi-boiler was installed at the beginning of the month. (Thanks, NYSERDA! Seriously, that commie socialist government program helped a lot.) Living with it is a bit different. One, my gas bill is noticeably lower. Two, instead of keeping water heated and standing by, it only heats it as I use it. Water takes a little longer to get hot, and it never gets hotter than the temperature it’s set at. The shower has less pressure because there’s less water flowing, and I also turn it all the way to HOT pretty much immediately and can’t nudge it any hotter even if I want to — at least, not without running down to the basement and setting a new temperature. On the plus side, I never run out of hot water.

I’ve been tempted to put the temp up a little because I am a fan of long hot showers (a lot of writers will tell you they get great ideas in the shower), but I’m resisting because the whole point of this change is to conserve resources.

In order to prep for the boiler and the new basement insulation included in the project, I cleaned and semi-organized the basement. I had not cleaned the basement since moving into this house in 2014. Tidied, yes; cleaned, no. (Feel for that poor vacuum cleaner!)

I tossed a lot of stuff. But since I’ve lost weight after going low carb, I was glad I hadn’t taken some of the old donation bags to a thrift store yet, because now I can wear some of that stuff again and instead get rid of fat clothes. Once in a while procrastination is our friend.

It certainly benefited my spare room library redecoration: I found uses for bookshelves, rugs, baskets, a rocking chair, an ottoman, a mirror, some frames, etc. It also enabled me to reorganize my office closet.

Once in a while a pack rat mentality actually does save some money.

Of course, there’s more to get rid of. I’m deciding between Facebook Marketplace or the Habitat ReStore for the stuff that still has some use, but I haven’t decided yet. (From what I hear, selling stuff on Facebook can be a miserable experience. Any thoughts?)

I bought a newer used car and said goodbye to the old Subaru. I somehow thought I was buying a smaller car, at least until I tried to get the RAV4 in the garage and clean the windshield. Oops. But I’m not listening anxiously to the engine for intimations of imminent disaster every time I drive this one, and that was my primary goal.

Penny the cat and I both got through dental work. Now I need to do something about these old glasses I reverted to during the pandemic because the more fashionable pair broke. My last experience trying to get a pair was so miserable, I’ve been putting it off. There’s also a part of me that thinks I should just wait until cataract surgery, but apparently I’ve got a ways to go.

As for writing? I joined a mini TikTok course. So far, it’s striking me as a needless distraction from what I really need to do. (Especially since most of my new followers each day are generic guys declaring that they’re honest, godly, and good. The same ones as on Facebook and Instagram, only the quantities are on steroids.)

Less than one day of new followers. Cowboy1634 is my favorite for that subtle touch of the wad of bills, but I appreciate shirtless Eric, too.

While I may continue to figure out TikTok, I’ve decided February is going to be Mailing List Month. That’s been hanging over my head only for, like, years now.

Part of that will require deciding on a regular blog post day that isn’t simply the last possible day of the month, which has actually been working pretty well for me. Or giving up the blog and only doing the mailing list. If you have a preference, O rare blog reader, let me know.

February is also Starting to Write the Next Book Month.

Soon needed is Haul Out and Lubricate the Sewing Machine and Finish the Window Treatments Month, but I’m not adding it to the list yet. February is too short for that.

Anyway, here’s a very fast look my spare room redecoration into a library/pantry/inflatable mattress guest room, if you’re interested: https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdhcK2RW/

One of the things I noticed while setting it up is that I’ve become such a big library reader (and also often an e-book reader), that very few of the books I’ve loved in the last few years have actually made it onto the shelves here. Instead, there are old favorites that survived the last move, plus shelves of books I haven’t gotten around to yet … because unlike books I own, library books have due dates.

So, apparently, deadlines really do help.

Two steps forward, a whole bunch of steps sideways

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So clearly I’ve developed some sort of deep resistance to marketing my books. I still like to write them and design them, but I can’t seem to make myself do the things necessary to actually sell them.

If I knew why this was, presumably I’d get over it, right?

Right now I have the perfect excuse that these are the last few weeks before winter closes in for painting exterior doors and rooms and radiators. Of course, I have a lot of resistance to doing that, too, it turns out. (I also got seriously interrupted when I discovered a bunch of sloppily-disguised old termite damage in one of the rooms. Now I have to repair that because I made it much worse in my panic that my house might fall down.)

I need more excuses, though.

Can I blame my uncomfortable office chair? It’s an old wooden swivel chair, if that helps paint the picture. But is it really uncomfortable? Do I ever sit it in it long enough to find out? I suspect there may be a whole industry selling high-end desks and desk chairs built on people in denial about the real reasons for their procrastination.

Could it be my current fascination with low-sugar foods? My glucose is now slightly above normal, so prediabetic, and both my father and relatively slim brothers have long had full-fledged Type 2 diabetes, so I’ve become one of those wackos who’s not only tried red lentil penne, but even bought more of it. (It’s not bad, if you like red lentils. There’s plenty of chew.)

I also recently learned that regular pasta and rice have a lower glycemic load if you cook them, refrigerate them, and reheat them. Weird, right? Suddenly leftovers are even more our friend. In any case, I find changing over my entire diet takes a lot of brain space and leaves me looking up things like “What is the glycemic load of ice cream?” (Surprisingly low. I’m sorry I looked.)

My other hobby right now is putting items in my IKEA shopping bag and then checking to see if they will be there when I drive the two or three hours to New Jersey or Massachusetts to get them. You would not believe how quickly a certain perfectly narrow shelf with a single narrow door can fly out of stock. Add on a desire to tack on a visit to the grandchildren if it’s NJ – which requires baking because that’s basically the only thing I’ve got going for me as a grandma – and it’s kind of like playing the lottery.

Meanwhile I also really love to just sit and read other people’s stuff, a habit I got into big-time during the pandemic. Writers can claim that’s “research,” but usually I’m just happily chowing down on a story I don’t ever have to think about selling to anyone.

Caitlin Doughty, from her website caitlindoughty.com

However, one book I read recently was research for the next Lawson novel, assuming I get around to volume four, which I expect to be focused on young, make-up-obsessed mortician Marlena Didsbury (who memorably overshared some dead body details over pot roast with the Jennings in THE UTTER CATASTROPHE). If you can stand the subject matter, Caitlin Doughty’s SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES: AND OTHER LESSONS FROM THE CREMATORY is a pretty amazing read: funny, warm, thought-provoking, and very well-

written. (And as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.) Doughty is a genuine, passionate advocate for “a good death,” but she also has a very entertaining YouTube account.

I also wrote a synopsis for the current novel, the one that’s a romantic comedy and thus a bit of a departure, but my synopsis is 1000 words and I need to somehow get that down to 500. That does at least make painting termite-damaged rooms and writing web posts like this sound like fun again.

So there is some slow, turtle-like progress being made. I finally got my web site verified and authenticated. (My primary computer still refuses to visit my own site, though.) And everyone’s panicking about how Apple’s new privacy policy will ruin the way authors use email, while I have the consolation of knowing I never got around to depending on it in the first place.

Anyway. With this post, I’ve officially achieved two blog posts in two months, after years of silence! So yay me, right?

Any advice? What do you do when you realize you’re deeply resisting doing something you really want or need to do?