Today’s a double whammy blog day, as I also have a guest post at Fiction University on figuring out the best writing schedule for you.

Meanwhile, I think I need to give an update after my little meltdown from March, when I said I might quit writing. Strangely, I think that just giving myself that permission and letting myself consider other options made me feel a lot better about it. It may have turned it from something I felt obligated to do to something I was actively choosing to do. I think my social media purge also helped, as well as adjusting my ideas of what counted as “success.”

I said I might quit unless something happened to change the situation. I guess I was looking for a sign. Well, the next week, there was a Kindle Daily Deal on Enchanted, Inc., and my sales since then have doubled, and they’ve stayed at that level for more than a month. My May and June royalties on my independently published books will be a lot higher than they’ve been, and my next two Random House royalty payments should be pretty good, as well as possibly my audio royalties. And I sold book 9 to Audible. So, my money worries aren’t completely resolved, but my finances look a lot better than they did.

And I keep coming up with new ideas, which is a sign that my brain isn’t ready to quit. So, I think I’ll take it one book at a time. The book I’m revising now, the one for Audible, is coming out in the fourth quarter, and we’re looking at an August release for Enchanted, Inc. book 9 (so that I can release in e-book, print, and audio at the same time), so I probably won’t want to be juggling a lot of other work during all this time. Thinking about doing any other kind of job made me appreciate writing more, so I may address the financial issues by looking at other writing I can do. I keep joking about the low-stress, cozy fantasy thing, but I’m thinking in terms of maybe writing some “category” romantic fantasy — some short, light fantasy reads with a dash of “sweet” romance — and test the market for that. While I love a big, juicy fantasy epic every so often, when I’m busy and stressed, I would love something I could read in maybe a couple of sittings or on a weekend afternoon that’s just a fun escape with maybe some excitement but without a lot of additional stress. Sometimes you want a real page-turner whose outcome is in doubt, and sometimes you just want to run away to a magical place. Surely I’m not the only one.

So, that’s where things stand right now. I have too many stories I want to write to be able to stop, and if things keep going the way they have, I’ll be able to stick with it for at least a little while longer. I’m more at peace with where I am. I think I’ve also figured some of the emotional/psychological things that set it all off, but that’s fodder for another post. Thanks for all the support in the e-mails and blog comments. It was nice to be reminded that what I do brings joy to other people.