2021: Forced Introspection
So, if y'all have been following along, it's been a year of figuring things out. You'd think in my 40th year of life with 7 books under my belt, I'd had found a rhythm of how to do this whole book thing.
Write
Edit
Publish
Promo
Repeat.
It's a cycle that used to work well, but with the changing market and new online retailers and, frankly a younger generation to engage with (because I've been writing over 10 years), there is always writing, always editing, always promotion to be done. It's like trying to wrangle four spinning plates.
And for a long time, I did it that way. The same slog over and over and over. Book tours. Blog posts. post cards and author events.
Thanks to the 2021: Year of introspection and reading and watching and generally avoiding the writing game all together, I did finally realize that when playing with time loops, change and growth is inevitable.
From this week's episode of Loki to the infamous time loop of Dr Strange, time loops in entertainment have become the ultimate obstacle for any potential hero, used as both a prison cell and a classroom.
You either learn, or you perish.
For example, Life after Life by Kate Atkinson. Her protagonist Ursula dies a billion ways over and over and over again, but every time she dies, she gets the chance to learn about herself and her troubles. In Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl, the characters aren't in a time loop, but they have to keep going through the same actions to learn more about themselves in order to move on.
In Russian Doll on Netflix, the main character Nadia has to repeat her birthday over and over again. No matter how she tries to change the events, she still ends up dying again.
But in my FAVORITE example of time loops, Groundhogs Day, the main character Phil has to relive the day over and over until he actually becomes a better person.
So like these other protagonists, I've grown in my game. Last month I told you what I had learned about the writing loop, and what needed to change. This month, I can tell you what has changed in my promo loop.
1. You got to do it all the time. People are finding new-to-them authors ALL THE TIME. I've come to accept that its okay to be proud of my books. Even the ones with flip phones in them. It is okay to pimp yourself everyone once in a while.
2. You have to change. You've got to learn new ways of doing things, even though they might seem scary. Get on Instagram, do an interview (me with Romancing the Story), try just a twitter chat with the lovely ladies over at #momswritersclub.
So this month, I did a little promo with the KISS App. You can find me reading the first few pages of THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGHT on my Facebook page!
Talk about something slightly scary!
3. Always help friends promote. Good will is good will. So check out the fun stuff the Kim Falconer has going on this month with her book!
Turns out, those time loops are not as scary as you might think. Not evolving is scary. Getting stuck is scarier.
And, honestly, there is a YouTube video for EVERYTHING.
Until next time, gentle readers.
Amanda Arista
Author and Human
www.amandaarista.com
@pantherista
