Choosing Disability [CC]

Talking about choosing disability when writing! #Authortube

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THE DYING THOUGHTS SERIES: http://www.joeypaulonline.com/p/dying-thoughts-series.html
THE LIGHTS OUT TRILOGY: http://www.joeypaulonline.com/p/lights-out-trilogy.html
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Taking Your Time

TAKING YOUR TIME

I'm going to be honest here, even though I know the majority if my work, is not something with a deadline attached, I can't help the way my already anxious brain tries to tell me that if I don't fix things, make everything perfect in a short space of time, then bad things will happen. It's not true, and I have spent years at this point working through ways to apply that logic to the way my mind works.

As always, I can really only speak as an indie author. I have never been traditionally published, and while I have been told and seen there is wiggle room when it comes to actual deadlines, I've not been privy to how that all works, so that's where my experience is. 

Being an indie author I, mostly, have very few hard deadlines. I like to set soft ones when it comes to like deciding when I should have things ready for the sensitivity readers, betas, editors and so forth. I like to make sure that I've given myself more than enough time so that there's no rush involved. At the end of the day, you are the one that knows yourself best and how you work best, you gotta do what works for you.

I will say I've known writers and authors who can really only get that focus to get things done when they have a strict and harder deadline, and if that's you, then yes, work with what you know works for you. I think my issue there is that too much of the time that can lead to overloading their plates and getting upset at themselves, or even burning out. That's the part I really wouldn't wish on anyone.

When it comes at the cost of your mental, or even physical, health, that's when things need to change. I was, for a very long time, before publishing my debut, pushing myself again and again constantly, to finish stories. When the kidlet was little, I would go to a friend's house, kidlet would stay with their mum, and I'd spend like 4 hours and get close to 10K in a day. Sounds great right?

Nope, I would do this once a fortnight or even month. The remainder of that time? I could not write a word. I would try, I would sit there and try, and sure kidlet was making all the noise babies do, but it didn't work. I was pushing myself to finish and banging out a huge chunk of words, but it would also take me close to burnout and then lock my creativity a way until I'd had a chunk of time to recharge.

Of course everyone is different, and of course it's possible that someone else who'd been in my exact situation wouldn't have had the same outcome. That's great for them, but for me it wasn't just about not being able to write, but that it would have a massive impact on my mental health, as well as causing flares and such from my chronic conditions. It made things worse for me, and I, eventually, realised that it was much better to take your time than to push and push and push until you break.

Your mileage may, of course, vary.  

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Time Tracking: How It Helps [CC]

Talking about how tracking my time has helped me in numerous ways! #Authortube

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Why Publishing Is Not A Race - The After Process

WHY PUBLISHING IS NOT A RACE

I have been writing for more of my life than I haven't been. I have, at this point, drafted almost fifty books, and have published 24 of them. I have been strict with myself with how many and when things are published. For a time it was two books every year, one year I did three, and then I had a bunch of years where it was either one or none, all for health and such reasons. My first book was published 21 years ago in August 2005. This is not meant to be some kind of brag, or to make anyone else feel like they're not fast enough or anything like that. It is to showcase that I have been an indie author for a very long time, and even with that first book published at 23, I will still tell you, and it will still be one thousand percent true, that publishing is not, and neither has it ever been, a race.

These days (and yes I know that makes me sound super old!) there's so much emphasis on doing all the things as early as possible. People will push for accomplishments that also don't have a time limit because they feel, or are made to feel, like if they haven't achieved it by x age, they will be left in the dust. It's not true. It has never been true. 

Now before you protest, yes, I am an old now, but when I was first published, I was 23. There various things tied to me wanting to publish young, the medical ones I'm not going to get into, but it felt like there was this societal push that everything we achieve is a race. If I didn't publish first, I would not 'win' that race. It led to me making choices about my publishing path back then, that I would never do again, nor advocate for anyone else to do either.

Shocking as this is to hear, I didn't win. I didn't come out ahead of my peers, other authors who published after me, who were at the same age, and in the same spaces, and were also publishing their first books. I might have 'beaten' them technically, but I did not win. I didn't publish again until 2011, and in that gap, and in the time since, I have really sat on the thought that you have to do something 'first' or it's not an achievement.

Which, firstly, sod that mindset, and secondly, why does it actually matter? I've had these kinds of discussions with friends, authors or not, about authors feeling like they are in competition with their peers. Readers, by definition, read. It's not like they are only allowed one x genre ever. They can, and do, read books by all different authors. Those authors, they are your peers, they are the people you should have community with. But for some reason, some authors, they genuinely believe that they have to destroy others in their genre and such because otherwise they will lost readers.

I mean, as a reader myself, if I saw that, I would seriously avoid that author and their books, but maybe that's just me. At the end of the day, you can choose to isolate yourself, to push yourself to breaking point to 'win' a race that was never one in the first place, or you can find a writing community, take the time you need, and come out stronger for it. 

Whichever you choose, I wish you luck and readers! 

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How I Draft [CC]

Discussing how I personally approach drafting! #Authortube

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Spoonie Writer: Learning To Rest

SPOONIE WRITE: LEARNING TO REST

This feels like a post I could have written so many times in the past. When I talk about taking breaks, and not having to 'earn' time off, it's become the hill I will die on, and because of that, I'm kinda known for it. The problem is that while I believe all of that is true one thousand percent, I'm not always good at following my own advice, which I think is a somewhat universal thing, the sepsis last year, and the long recovery following really schooled me on how all of what I've preached is very much applicable to me too.

I mean I was good at taking at least two days off completely every month, and again, to be fair, I was not (am still not and never will be) working 8 hours every day. It was at most three hours, and then I'd have the rest of the day off. So in my head, it made some sort of sense, but oh boy, when I tell you what it's like to go from being able to do that to not even being capable of sitting up for 30 mins straight, it's a whole lot to appreciate and learn from.

Which brings me to the point and topic, that you will, spoonie or otherwise, have times in your life when you are forced to learn just what you personally will need to do to actually be properly resting. Like I said, it took almost dying for me to really learn how I personally rest. Yes, I had ways before, but sometimes, you will need different, and new, tools in your toolbox when it comes to resting.

For example, I have always been a voracious reader. This was, before the sepsis, my primary way of resting and recharging. While I've been an ebook only reader for a while, and while I've have a kindle also for a long while, it's always been a reliable thing. read, settle in, disconnect the author brain at times, and just lose myself in a story. It had always been something that worked for me. To the point when I got home, I was mentally planning my TBR for the long recovery ahead.

Only that wasn't how things went. I tried, believe me I tried, but my mind could not latch on and stay focused. What had once been a way to escape, a way to heal, became something where I didn't even really follow the stories enough to be able to really settle in with them. I'd dropped my goodreads goal twice, I met it, but at a much lower amount that I would have, I believe, without the sepsis.

Now don't get me wrong, I did not abandon reading, and I did find the solution and such, and am now back to being comfortable and can settle in with a book like before, but I had to try and find something new, something that I could focus on, and would allow me t disconnect and rest. YouTube helped there. I found a few true crime channels that had that effect on me. I found myself using social media more than before. All of which were little to do with writing and the author life, they were just ways for me to rest and recover. I spent a lot of time chatting with friends, curling up with the kitties, napping, and just trying to find my way back, and also accept that rest, like I've been telling so many others all this time, is not optional. You just gotta find what works for you.

Good luck, and just remember that it takes as long as it takes, and that's okay! 

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Life Of Joey - October 2026 [CC]

Letting you know what I got up to last month! #Authortube

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The Trials Of An Indie Author: Trying New Things

THE TRIALS OF AN INDIE AUTHOR: TRYING NEW THINGS

One of the big things you have to always remember as an indie author (and probably trad too), is that things online change rapidly. The same can be said for real life too, but I've found it to be a whole lot quicker on things like social media and the like. One day something specific is working for reels and shorts, and then like 12 hours later that thing is now done, and even with others still posting they don't get told, they just get to watch the thing they've spend time, and sometimes money, doing plummet. It sucks, no one likes it, except maybe the algorithm, but no one knows about that either.

There are other facets of this, like when you write to market, it can work for a lot of indie authors, and for others it's like crickets, because they missed that particular trend by about 0.5 seconds. My point though is that as authors, we do need to be really careful and also on the ball, and that, that is exhausting! I can't tell you how many times I would have to rapidly pivot towards one thing and then find out that the thing is no longer the big thing.

In any job that deals with some kind of advertising, you will realise that trends come and go, and it's more about finding your audience, the people who will see your book and want that in particular. I have been an author for 21 years at this point. I write across a variety of different genres, and because they are all under one pen name, I have made my life harder. I could have, yes, done multiple different pen names. I didn't because who has the energy for that? Definitely not me! But also, I felt like those who liked the stories I tell, would maybe like that in a genre they have not read much or at all before. It doesn't always work, not by a long shot, but it has worked enough.

As it stands right now, I have a core group of readers who will, usually, be happy to skip around my usual genres. I will also get readers who want one genre only, and are happy when that's the one that comes up next. You don't have to do everything right, but you do have to have some idea of what you're trying to do, and that's where trying new things comes into it.

When I was first published I was already straddling two very different genres. My debut was crime/thriller, my second book was the first in a paranormal/mystery series. While some readers who like crime/mystery books will also be open to throwing in some paranormal, for others that is a giant no thanks. I messed up. I didn't do enough research, and for a time at the start, I call the Dying Thoughts series solely a crime/mystery. Can you see the issue there? I was so focused on having that same readership from my debut follow me into my first series that I just thought the shared genre was something that would appeal to all. It did not, it really did not.

Of course there was a correction later down the line, but it took me a while, and of course because of that, I lost people who might have liked other books that were straight up mystery. While there are many slip ups like that I could talk about, the point is that there will be times when you miss the bus on the newest viral post, and there will be times when you personally have thrown the bus away because you didn't make sure of things before trying to hop on board. The life of an indie author is about finding new ways to help yourself, and also to bring your books to the people who want, and need, to read them. So be ready to pivot, be ready to try new things, and be ready to keep pushing along. You've got this! 

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Taking Breaks [CC]

Rest and breaks are so important, and I'm breaking down why! #Authortube

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The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Planning New Stories

THE TRIALS OF A CRIME WRITER: PLANNING MORE STORIES

I gotta be honest here, after everything I went through last October, and the way things changed so much for me, I didn't know if I would ever be able to both return to being an author, and also be in a place to do more than revise, do edits, and publish. Those felt like very minimal typing needed. I already knew that it would be a lot harder for me to do a whole heap of things I'd been able to do before. From writing these posts, to doing scripts, to recording and captioning, and all of that. I had a lot of people say things like: dictation might work. I already knew it was not something I worked well with. For me to be able to tell a story, I had to be writing with hands rather than voice.

So when it's gotten to this point, the fact that in less than a month it will have been a year, and I am still here, and not just still here, but also, here, and writing, or at least planning to write makes me kinda emotional. I took a chunk of time off writing before the sepsis and such. I wanted to be able to spend some time doing both revisions and rewrites for older projects that I felt would need more time than I'd have been able to give them otherwise. I always planned to draft again at some point, in fact had tentatively booked April as my start month. It didn't happen, and I'll admit, during recovery, seeing those plans on my calendar, it hurt, it really did. I was at that stage where I didn't know still, and it kinda broke me for a time.

What makes me smile is that even though this April didn't happen, next April is looking like it might be a possible thing for me to start drafting two new books. For the first time ever really, I have allowed myself time to kinda really sketch out what I want from the books, and also where I want them to go. Normally when it comes to planning, my idea of it is, make a chapter list, and put like a couple of words for what should happen then. People see me and the way I'm so organised and assume that applies to drafting too. It does not. Those couple of words? Sometimes they are as descriptive as: Intro, school day, and X Meets Y.

So this is why a lot of my planning and organisational advice sticks to all the other ways I plan, because I would not even know where to begin with a proper outline, and by proper, I mean those who plan with a lot more detail than me, which to be fair, would not be hard!

That said, I do like fleshing out the story ideas. I can't always promise even half those ideas end up in the story itself, because it's more just me thinking that this thing would be great, and then I just never ever use it. An example would be for the Invisible Quartet, which to showcase how little I plan, was meant to be a duology, and Lights Out trilogy? Meant to be one book. Anyhoo, the example, I had a whole antagonist plan and character. I knew where I wanted them to come in and all their backstory. They never ever even got close to being hinted at, let alone mentioned!

So when it comes to being back to being able to actually plan stories I'm going to draft, it's lightness, and just joy at being able to be a writer again, to be able to start at the start again. I don't know how long it will take, I don't know what will come after those stories, if I will break for a bit and do more revision, I do know though that this is who I am, who I was meant to be, and I will never stop telling stories. They are mine to tell. 

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