Side projects

For me, writing and publishing is not my day job¹, and I’m certain this is the case for most published authors. Given this, I have something a little different to share this week.

You likely didn’t notice, because you’re busy folks with side projects of your own, but I dropped from weekly to bi-weekly for these past couple of newsletters. Over the past month, I’ve only succeeded in writing a few hundred words on my publishing book. The reason for my low output boils down to a simple rule I force upon myself for side projects:

I don’t stress about side projects.

This is quite different from lacking ambition or not caring about the projects. It’s an intentional pre-forgiveness, because sometimes other things crop up that are clearly more important than adding words to my work-in-progress. Those things don’t even need to be big things, just ones that I feel in the moment are what I should be doing with my time.

Over the past few weeks, I had to take a day away from things to recover from shot #2 (Pfizer, just a bit tired and achy for a day). The bigger thing: My daughter finally picked her college for the fall. The deadline for choosing a college is May 1st and at 3pm on April 30th, we sent in the enrollment deposit. Before the decision, there were a bunch of different things we were considering around the choice. After the decision, some of the logistics for fall already needed attention.

I absolutely have a drive to get stuff done, including my publishing book. I also have an idea for a Kindle Vella that I’m thinking of pursuing before Vella goes public. I refuse to stress about accomplishing these things and will let them fall into place where they will.

My second novel took me years to write and publish, even though it wasn’t substantially different in character to my first. I wrote my third novel during National Novel Writing Month, which comes in November of every year, and I published it in early March the next year².

Photo of cyclists crossing the finish line (by Ashley Warriner)

Rather than beating myself up over the four-year novel, I lean on these successfully completed side projects for the confidence to continue on the way I’ve been handling side projects. The ones I’m really into will cross the finish line when they’re ready, and in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the ride.

Side project motivation and approaches to creative projects vary dramatically from person to person, so this is not a “you shouldn’t get stressed about your side projects.” I’m just offering up a mindset that has worked for me.

Kevin

1. Mostly. I certainly do a lot of writing internally at Khan Academy, plus the occasional blog post.

2. This was The Gamerunners, my middle-grade virtual reality gaming story, and I wanted it out before the Ready Player One movie hit theaters later that March. This made no difference in sales whatsoever. Indie publishing middle-grade is hard.