Distracted

Good evening! I hope everyone is doing well. I’ve gotten sucked into a super huge problem. Okay, that’s overly dramatic. It’s only super huge in my mind, and it’s only a problem because I’m thinking about it. But, but, but … I’m sucked into the numbers game on Kindle Vella. I’ve got two serials published on the platform and they were doing well. I was getting reads every day, and getting thumbs-ups for my episodes. And my stories were slowly moving up in the rankings. One of them even got as high as page six for its category.

And then a reversal. All good writing needs a reversal, doesn’t it? A story would be boring if everything went according to plan. But yes, my poor Vellas started slipping back down in the rankings and getting fewer reads. For the past two days, as a matter of fact, I’ve gotten ZERO reads.

But here’s my point. I got so obsessed with promoting my work and obsessively checking my ratings and rankings that my writing dwindled off. And then, the fewer reads I was getting, the more obsessive I became about promoting my work and checking my ratings. I could see that I was slipping into a bad pattern, but I was also getting positively frantic about this situation.

Other writers were getting likes and faves and my work was languishing. I doubled and then tripled the amount of posts I was making on social media. I started begging friends, family, and co-workers to read my Vellas. Still … nothing.

And so here I sit, realizing that all of this obsession has produced nothing but unease and a scant amount of actual writing. And that’s the crux of it. And also the solution. Writers write.

So, without any further ado, I am declaring today a Social-Media-Free day (wish me luck). No Instagram. No Twitter. No Facebook. And absolutely NO checking my sales reports on Amazon. Today I will write. Today I will let the rest of it go. I will relinquish my attachment to the numbers games and I will write my stories.

Do any of you get caught up in similar distractions? Drop me a comment and let me know. In the meantime, happy reading, writing, and blogging.
~Kyeli