Busy Much?

Any other time, I'd have my post posted at 12:01 AM. You know, like a good little blogger. I'm just going to own the fact that I forgot until too late last night. I know I'm not the only one feeling a little pressure these days.

Raise your hand if you're writing a book, querying a book, promoting a book, or trying to to set up your brand. Raise your hand if you're doing more than one of these things at a time. Raise your hand if you're stressed out by whatever it is that you're doing.

Raise your hand if you thought things would get easier when you had that contract or published that book.

^ This is how I feel when I
think about my series ending.

I sure did. I thought writing was the hardest part and then I thought editing was. That's before I met formatting. And cover design. Until I came face-to-face with marketing. Being a new writer on the block isn't easy. There's interviews and guest posts to schedule (which I've fallen behind on), there's stats to check, guest bloggers to coerce into doing an interview on my blog. There are guest blogs I do here and on another blog as well. I was trying to format The Treasure Hunter's Lady for print and straighten out the cover front and back. There's a second book in my series to edit, a third book to write and the nagging fear that maybe I've reached the end of the line. I don't know what to write after I finish the series.

I'm coordinating the writing contest for my local writing group. And to be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing. On top of that, I'm in charge of scheduling speakers once a month too. There are plenty of writers in my area, but getting them to come talk to us? Not as easy as it would seem.

To be honest, at first I was overwhelmed. Totally freaked out by all this extra stuff I was doing. E-mail, e-mail, e-mail. Answering questions, questions, questions. Update, update . . . you get the point. Wrack my brains trying to think of something intelligent to say on Twitter to promote The Treasure Hunter's Lady. Then I remembered one of my friends telling me about HootSuite, how you can pre-load your Twitter and Facebook to receive messages whenever you choose. It's kind of a pain to have to type out two weeks worth of Twitter messages at once, but so worth it when I don't have to do anything else for two whole weeks. I can focus on other, more important things. Like maybe getting that second book edited. I'll deal with writing the third one when I catch my breath. I won't freak about what my next project is. Eye on the ball. I will get my blog posts done on time.

I will take a deep breath and go look at some LOL Catz or something. I'm not Superwoman. Just human and in reality, I've done a lot. More than I ever thought I could. Some of these things, yeah, they take away from my writing time, but they build something else. Looking back at the writer I was three years ago--the one who'd forgotten everything she ever knew about writing and didn't know where to turn or what to do next--well, I don't even recognize her.

Will it get easier? I hope so. But if it doesn't, well, the last couple of months have just proven I can handle it. No wonder I'm addicted to sweet food. I might have to buy some bigger clothes for my next author photo. Erm, maybe I'd better start walking a little faster when I hike.

So, what do you do to get through the stress of promotions, writing, blogging, whatever?

When I'm not feeling the crush, I'm blogging at Have Novel, Will Edit. Crazy-talking on Facebook, promoting and being random on Twitter. And occassionally hitting up G+.