MM Hurley

Burnout is real my friend.
I didn’t even realize I was feeling the sting of burnout until this week, but here I am, feeling it and wondering what to do.
Over the last year, I’ve wanted this and taken such a slow pace, and now that my self-imposed deadline is so close, I see that I’ve been spending every spare thought trying to do this. Every moment is consumed with sharing planning and thinking. And then we (the kiddos) went back to school and I was so depleted that I just froze and stood there frying in the flames of burnout.
The good news is that I have taken time to rest. I have taken a break from Emmeline Jones. I spent the entirety of Tuesday night in bed. I was going to read, instead, I watched an entire season of Grey’s Anatomy.

Wednesday, I went back to the library after a two-week break. I’m not sure if the book was burning me out, or life, but I think I’m good again.

……I did something.
Something I probably should have waited on. But Oh well. It’s done. I did it. I put my draft, my cover, and all the info needed into KDP. Doing that gave me a proof copy; I ordered two copies. I did this for many valid reasons: including I was excited and couldn’t wait to hold my book. But mostly because my kid told me she would only read it in book form and I wanted her opinion. (She ONLY read chapter one).

But the good thing about doing this is having a physical copy of what it will look like. I’ll need to do this again at least once. But I have never printed a book before. I didn’t know how it turned out. Now I know, I have some MAJOR formatting issues. I have some problems with the spacing of the pages. The font I used, is iffy. I need to adjust the size of the text. And a million other small issues. So it was good I did it. I probably should have held off until I have a more finalized draft, but se la vie.

Check out how it looks. She’s pretty. She needs work, but she’s pretty.

Journey/Thoughts/Comments
via a list

1. My side hustle isn’t helping right now.
   I have 14 journals/notebooks/workbooks available on my Amazon store. But in the last month, I’ve only sold one. In the past year, I’ve only sold six books. Six. The goal was for these to be sold while I was working on my draft. That way when the draft was ready to publish, I’d have the funds to pay my editor and any other fees I came across while self-publishing. But because that isn’t happening. While that’s very disappointing, it is what it is. It will not stop me from publishing, maybe slow me down, but not stop me.
2. As I get chapters back from my editor, I’m making changes and attempting to make things shine. I’ve worked through chapter two completely. I’m attempting chapter three fixes today and tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be done with those and be able to get a few more chapters knocked out quickly.
3. Daily, I am still trying to post social content.  That my accounts will get in front of people and when the book does debut that will translate into sales.  I don’t know how. But that’s my hope.
4. Writing is hard. Publishing is hard. Feeling lost in a sea of amazing talent is hard. But I keep telling myself I can do the hard things. I hope I keep believing that.

Okay, that’s enough on this list. I have so much to do for life in general and my work.

@mm_hurley

Book Info Post: Today is a character description of the main character, Emmeline. The photo is #aigeneratedart but exactly how I see her. #debutnovel #themaskofemmelinejones #bookupdate #aspiringauthor

♬ Taylor Swift Ready for it – reeltemplates.pro

Thanks for following on with the journey.