I've Been a Disappointment to Myself

Early in the summer last year, I had Icarus fully outlined and was making headway on the first few chapters. Back then it looked like I would easily finish and be ready to publish not too long from now. I received the cover art back from artist Nathan Smith, and I thought having some bookmarks printed up that I could include in bags with sales at conventions would be a good way to market the book. Stupidly, I put, "The adventure begins in spring 2016," on them.

I've been a disappointment to myself this year. While I did manage to finish and release Daydreams and Myth, as you can see from the rough draft progress bar to the right of this page, I still have a long way to go before even the rough draft of Icarus is complete. I still have beta feedback, rewrites, edits, formatting, and proofreading before I can even order the proofs.

So what happened?

I could sit here and make up a bunch of excuses, but it all boils down to the same thing. Whatever the reason at the time, I didn't get my butt in the seat and write every single day. Or I was in the seat but allowed Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or some other online time waster distract me from what I should have been doing.

Why?

Excuses abound. I didn't feel well. I was busy cleaning or tending to some other business. I was tired and "couldn't think." Blah, blah, blah. Still, I have to wonder if I was creating excuses out of some other motivation.

Honestly, I've been afraid. I went from writing and running a small business on the side of a regular, full-time job to on the side of a part-time job. Now running Contented Comfort and writing are my only job. There's a lot more pressure and steeper consequences for failure, and that's terrifying. I let it paralyze me for half a year, and now I'm paying the price.

So when will Icarus be done?

I have no clue. I really don't, but I've managed to get my butt in the seat and write every day for the past week and a half. I finally just set regular "office hours," and for those two hours every day, no matter what's going on, I'm expected to be writing. Some days I manage over a thousand words. Others I only manage a hundred or so, but there's progress made every day.

I'm trying my best to at least be in the formatting phase by early June. I may manage to have the proofs ordered by then, or I may still be working on rewrites. I have no way of knowing, but stupidity from last year aside, I'm not going to rush and try to force a release I can't see as possible. I did that with the original release of Succession. I paid for it, and I refuse to do something so foolish again.