This week I took a small hiatus from work. This was to celebrate my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend and gather my thoughts before going into a tough few weeks editing my current manuscript. My girlfriend was also off for semester break so the luxury of being on my own schedule is I can pick my days off and we made sure our schedules synced for this little break. One of my moves to try and disconnect is to put my phone on airplane mode. I did this for 3 days and then again on Sunday night. No social media, email, text messages. I was just trying to reflect on the last few months. Put everything from work and life into perspective before my marketing push combines with the editing of my second book to form a perfect storm of stress, anxiety, and long nights (like this one…currently after 11 PM Sunday and have easily put in 10 hours now).
Creative Inspiration:
Watched a few more episodes of AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER. Into season 3 now.
I also watched the French Canadian film MARTYRS (2008) with a friend. Twisted. Even though it was a foreign film, the plot is very action/fear heavy so it watches well to any language. Very much on point for some of my writing in PULSE. Not for the squeamish though.
Not much else besides that. I did watch UFC 251 but that was more part of the disconnect.
Work:
- Signed my first 100 copies of SOMEONE’S STORY, 100 more to go
- Still working with PumpUpYourBook on a scheduled tour
- Also looking at a tour with YA Bound Book Tours: http://yaboundbooktours.blogspot.com/
- Self-organizing more promotion with book bloggers, BookTubers, and Bookstagrammers
- I found a BookTuber video where I was featured: https://youtu.be/Z21bAC5IhiE
- My hometown paper ran a story on me: https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/entertainment/langley-author-pens-somebodys-story/
- Read all my editor notes and have started to brainstorm how to implement the changes. I already made my first tough cut, plenty more of that will be coming in the next month. At the end of the day I try to remember, stay within my message and write action. If those two boxes get ticked, you are on track. If they don’t, I have to rethink/rework the idea to make it better…
B.A. Bellec 