The Hard Choices

You'd think that choosing character names and plot lines and ways to kill off characters would be the hard choices. They were. Once.

Currently the hard choices are about whether to read through the manuscript one more time, even though other writers have read it searching for error. Even though it's been professionally proofed. The hard choices are where to spend my marketing dollars and what to do myself.

Hard choices move around. They often have time lines. Consequences.

In writing, funding, and publishing Isolation, I've found hard choices at each stage. In writing, most of the hard choices were at the starting gate. In setting up and running a successful Kickstarter, what was hard wasn't so much the choices as the amount of emotional energy needed each and every day. In publishing, the hard choices have been surprisingly frequent. In fact, almost every choice seems hard. Maybe that's because there is no immediate reward. And though I pride myself on my love of delayed gratification, perhaps things are harder when there is no perceivable positive in the moment of (in)decision.

As I move into marketing, the hard choices just keep coming. Spend money online? Traditional routes? Perform social media tasks myself or hire someone? Do a little? Do a lot? 

Maybe it's a matter of perception. Everyone around seems to think I should be overjoyed: I'm publishing my novel. I am. Happy. But there are seemingly endless hard choices, and I let those feel heavy. I languish amid them. I become enervated. (Yes, passive voice. It's not a choice. I don't boldly get enervated. Obvious once I write it, right?)

"Habits learned early are habits for life." At least the characters of my novel find this cultural imperative begs repeating. 

It's not early for me, but it's time for a new habit of perception: choices are energizing. Good things come to those who make choices! I love questions, but it's time for exclamation points!!