Ups and Downs

The past month or so has been a bit of a down month for me, mostly due to stress. Stress and disorder. 

We're renovating our bathroom (almost 100% done!) which means everything from our bathroom, closets, and bedroom have largely been scattered across the rest of the house, including my office. 

Weirdly, for not being a super neat freak, things being out of sorts really fucks with my creative flow. Couple that with some intense stress at work, and ya boi has been off.

Then I had my first event of the year where I didn't cover costs. And I lost a patron on Patreon. It should have just been the last spin on a downward spiral that just sent me into a mega-funk. And for a moment, it was starting to. The ride back from con started out bleak. 

But...a few things happened over the past week or so. And I started to sort of tally them up in my mind:

• I was able to let an new author 'intern' selling in my booth at Multiverse. And best of all he sold very well!

• While I was at Multiverse an author I met at Fanboy Knoxville that I have been giving advice to texted to tell me that he'd done some stuff I suggested and it really paid off at an event.

• On my Selling at Cons panel two of the authors gassed me up citing me as a resource they have used to learn how to improve their sales at conventions.

• A couple of authors at the after hours Bar Con at Multiverse mentioned following me as a resource for how to market.

• An author I haven't met emailed to say they shouted out my transparency project on their substack.

• An author from London reached out to request a half hour of my time to pick my brain about organic marketing.

Added all up, I realized that while I'm not where I want to be, I'm making progress. It might not be in sales numbers, or monetarily, but I'm making a small difference in the lives of folks around me. And it course corrected me out of my funk.

So I guess what I am saying is sometimes we focus on the bad, instead of the good. And we just need to take a moment, step back, and count our blessings.

My next career will be in writing fortune cookies I reckon. 

Once I get the house back sorted though.