Publish or Perish
In October 2023 I announced a hiatus of my writing platform as I prepared to welcome my second child. A year later, that hiatus had no end date.
I had not intended for the hiatus to go on for so long. With a due date in January, I expected perhaps after a month or two I would resume my writing and content creation. But as day after day slipped by, I found that amid postpartum fatigue and the upheaval of our lives in an unexpected move, I had no creative energy to even consider the mammoth writing task.
As October 2024 approached, I felt guilty as I realized that a whole year had passed since my “temporary” hiatus. In the back of my mind, the old moniker “publish or perish” from the academic realm began to circle in my head. In self-publishing, I had fallen for the trap: producing was the thief of joy.
There were emails to send, content to film, reels to edit, free novellas to write, a schedule to keep, and the looming pressure to create or be lost in the tidal wave of other works. “To be successful in self-publishing you need to write to market and write a lot, the more you produce the more traction you get!” I was introduced to a rapid release (book releases literal months apart!) and the pressure to produce and produce quickly rose.
Without realizing it, the joy of writing had been overtaken by the pragmatics of creating a publishing business. As my life became busy the creativity vanished and left me churning out content merely because I was “supposed to.”
Perhaps the accidental year-long absence should not have been a surprise.
But, here I am, diving back into the publishing world.
What changed?
Well… nothing really. The book publishing industry still is a vast sea and I am a tiny boat. Content creation is still a monumental task that I am not very adept at. I still have books to write and edit. I still have two kiddos and a life that takes priority over my writing.
What did change: I recognized that what is most important is my own enjoyment of writing. I write not for fame or notoriety, I write to honor my LORD through the skills He has given me. My focus will shift from production to creation, centered on what I find joy and excitement in.
The hiatus has officially ended, and though there are no great plans for rapid release of market novels to push me to the Amazon Top 100 list, there are plans to continue to create stories that highlight the greatest story of them all.
