At any given moment I have a mountain of tasks to pick from: a veritable font of for-fun or for-work tasks I can do. But I spend so much time just sitting on the couch thinking I have nothing to do.
Now of course, this is a HUGE part of being ADHD. It’s partly analysis paralysis (when you have so many choices you just make none of them), and partly not always having the spoons necessary to do everything (so I do nothing).
As you can imagine, this influences how much I’m able to consistently work. And when you’re an author, a lot of your life relies on consistency– keeping up with writing, keeping up with marketing, keeping up on your emails and discussions with bookstores or designers or editors or what-have-you. While it’s possible to write sporadically, it’s a lot harder to curate a social media following or communicate with other professionals if you’re haphazard and flaky.
So I set myself a goal at the start of the year: Stay Consistent. It’s a goal that’s entirely doable. It doesn’t say I have to sell hundreds of books, or hit a certain number of newsletter subscribers. It essentially just means that I need to pick a few things I need to do, and then keep doing them. And it’s a qualitative goal as well, meaning that I get to decide at the end of the year if I met it based on whether or not it feels like I met it.
So with the year halfway-ish over, I’m checking in. Have I been consistent, and furthermore… has it paid off?
There are two places where I wanted to stay consistent: writing and marketing.
Writing has gone alright, I would say. I could do with spending more time just writing a little a day, instead of trying to crank out the end of a short story days before it needs to be 100% drafted. But, I have kept writing even when You Can’t Sniff the Internet has been away at the editor or otherwise not needed my attention. So I’ll give myself half credit here.
Marketing, which was admittedly where I’ve always struggled more, has been a much stronger success. In the past 6 months, I’ve nearly doubled my instagram followers, but WAY more importantly I’ve noticed I’m getting a lot more engagement when I post. That’s what matters. I want to talk to you people. I want you to get to know me, and for me to get to know what YOU want to see from me. Also, I’ve been sending emails consistently (once a month since I set that up). Altogether, I’m counting this section as a win.
So that's... what? One and a half points out of two? 75% of points? That's a passing grade I suppose.
Now I just have to keep this up beyond the middle of year! I really hope this all pays off, and Sniff gets the launch that it deserves. But only time will tell.
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