Well-being and a busy week

 I've read lots about what you should and shouldn't write in a blog post as a writer, but I have always tried to be honest about my journey and in the last few days I have been taking care of myself. I've felt a lack of energy and tired for a week or so, and then yesterday I realised that I'd finally hit a low spot when I got angry with some flowerpots! I can laugh about it now, which means I'm feeling better.

Being outside is usually conducive to my well-being, and eventually it was. I've spent the last couple of days in the garden and not on my laptop. I cut the grass yesterday. My last chance before 'no mow May'. I also potted up my tomato plants and today I planted out the peas and pulled up a plant (no idea of its name) encroaching along the flower beds and stifling my other plants. I had Rue as my 'helper', so there was a lot of stick and ball throwing in between. 

My 'helper'

Peas

It's all been too much!

This afternoon I sat outside with the latest book I'm reading. Reading has also been my life-saver. It's important to listen to your body and find ways to lift the mood. Finding what works is half the battle. For me, it is being outside. Just sitting in the garden creates a peace inside of me, though sometimes I do have to go further afield.

Our weather hasn't helped. We've had so much rain and cold. I thrive in sunshine and warm days. I can't believe we are in May already with only the odd good day. What has this to do with writing, I hear you cry. Well, I stopped writing. I decided writing wasn't helping. I had a very busy week last week, and while it was interesting and fruitful, I think it also sapped my energy levels.

About a week ago I joined ASPA, the Association for Self-Published Authors. Having let my membership to another self-published organisation lapse last year, I have found one I feel I fit in with. They are friendly and I don't feel I'm the struggling poor cousin while everyone else is making mega bucks from their books. With the other organisation I felt a failure because I wasn't producing three books a year, have millions of followers and top Amazon ratings. Does any of this sound familiar? 

Anyway, I attended my first webinar with ASPA looking at book reviews and how to deal with them, how some trolls give one star ratings with no comment, how to take some encouragement from even two or three star reviews. We had a chance to talk about our books and what we were working on at present. All this was new to me. I was actually asked questions and everyone was friendly.

The second webinar was with The Phare (an indie magazine who I have submitted to in the past). The subject was how to market yourself as a writer. This mostly consisted of having a good website and social media presence. This was a most interesting talk and I made tons of notes. Having a proper website is something I've thought about in the past and was on my to do list. Yet here I am two years later not having done it. The webinar made me think about two things, 1) whether I take my writing seriously enough and 2) whether others think I do! What I have done is update my profile photo and bio on both this blog and my Facebook Author page. It's a start.

My final writerly thing came on Sunday. I took my laptop along with me to the London Writers' Support Group meet-up (which came out of the course I took with Indie Novella). We were a small group this time, just three of us and we met in the bar/cafe in BFI. We spent half an hour chatting about what we were working on, what we were going to do that day, and anything we had attended lately. Afterwards, we wrote for an hour, each working on our individual goal. I worked on the next scene of The Island. Later,  we chatted about what we had done and whether we achieved what we had set out to do in the session. It was a successful meet up and we hope to get together again in a few weeks time.

So, there we are. I haven't yet decided when I shall return to The Island. Maybe I need more time away from it. It is quite a dark place and maybe that has been playing on my mind. Perhaps I should write something totally silly. I do write that sort of thing too.

There is, of course, more gardening to do, if the weather holds. But for now, I'm just taking things slowly and being kind to myself.