(no subject)

I never thought that I would be grateful for my hard drive crashing, and still, given a time machine, the first thing I'd do would be to back up my files --

But there's a silver lining there.

It happened half a week after my book came out. And instead of worrying my head off about swag and blog posts and being loud about myself, I put my head down and I put some words on paper. Instead of obsessing over my Amazon rank, I put my head down and put some words on paper.

I am so grateful for that.

I understand the realities of writing in this age of social networking and constant self-promotion. But the real work is the writing. The real work of having people want to buy your book is writing a book that people want to buy (which is not always the same thing as writing a good book).

I think that people understand this and obsessing about marketing is like biting your fingernails. It's not necessarily that it's going to help anything, it's just that you're nervous and it's there.

I am burned out as anything right now but I am in my book, and it's not a bad place to be.