I’m resting after attending my third year of Wild Deadwood Reads, an author learning and book signing event in Deadwood, SD. It’s a day and a half of workshops, and this year’s were exceptionally good. I learned a great deal including new marketing techniques and how to write dialogue that moves the story along. Everything changes so fast, there’s always something new in the literary industry.
This year, I presented a workshop on how to use your writing gift and stay sane. Many times, I’ve felt discouraged and ready to quit writing. Reading books is so much easier and less expensive than writing them, plus there are so many other things I could do like quilting and volunteering. It wasn’t until I took a workshop about defining success for myself that made me stick with it. I’m not a USA TODAY bestselling author. I’ve not hit #1 on any chart. I don’t make five-figure royalties each month like other authors I know. My definition of success doesn’t involve any of those. It’s doing what I love the best I can with what I have. I’m not going to run myself into the ground doing all the things those authors do because life, especially at my age, is too short to invite that much stress into it, and I’m okay with that. That, my friends, was the gist of my workshop.
I spent Saturday in a large room with 90 other authors, sharing a table with my author friend, Megan Kinney. We’ve done that for three years now, and we’ve both written more books. So many more that having one table is too crowded for us both. That’s success! If we do WDR next year, we’ll each have our own tables. Sidenote: her books are great! I recommend them.
Today, I’m resting and getting things back in order for the next book-selling day, July 4th. My busy season has begun, and I hope can keep up.