#WIPWednesday #YearInReview

Season's Greetings!

For this final #WIPWednesday of the year, my combined 2020/2021 retrospective #YearInReview.


Books

In February 2020, tumbling: poetic thoughts from an anxious mind was featured in West Suburban Living magazine.

At Death's Door, the anthology by Pixie Forest Publishing featuring my flash fiction story, "If Only," was released in paperback and e-book in February 2020.

In November, I was informed by the publisher that tumbling: poetic thoughts from an anxious mind was a finalist for the Poetry: Narrative Best Book Award by American Book Fest.

And I have not abandoned any of my previous WIPs – I just haven't worked on them for almost two years. I do hope to get back to at least one of them in the coming year.


Essays, Articles, Short Stories, and Poems

In the past two years, I published fifteen essays and had a few syndicated on Love What Matters, The Mighty, Yahoo! Lifestyle, HrtWarming, TODAY Parents, For Every Mom, and The Good Men Project.

I was even asked permission to have my essay, "Acknowledging the Trauma," used in a graduate course on clinical trauma.

My essay, "My Husband and I Never Say 'I Love You, Too,'"continues to be my highest earning piece of writing ever, surpassing my first piece in income (though not in views).

I don't have access to pageview data for each of the sites that published or syndicated my work (though that would be the best metric to measure each piece's success), but I use a combination of the stats I do have to estimate how each of my pieces performs.

My top three pieces have not changed in the past two years, but their views have continued to grow as they still occasionally circulate.

My Top 3 Essays To Date:
(estimated based on page stats and/or social media reactions)

143,766 - 5 Reasons I’m Going To Continue Being A SAHM Even After My Kids Are In School: originally published on Scary Mommy; syndicated on That's Inappropriate (now Filter Free Parents), & Her View From Home

19,522 - When Anxiety Makes You Feel Like You Are in Danger Every Day of Your Life: originally published on Invisible Illness; syndicated on Thought Catalog, The Mighty, Yahoo! Lifestyle, & InspireMore

13,392 - My Husband and I Never Say “I Love You, Too”: originally published on P.S. I Love You; syndicated on InspireMore, TODAY Parents, The Good Men Project, & Filter Free Parents


Online Presence, Mailing List, and Appearances

I was part of a Poetry & Art event in September 2021 at which I read my poem, "growth." It was my first public poetry reading.

I was able to grow my mailing list by a handful of new subscribers, even during my hiatus. Presumably because of some of my past work continues to be shared and circulated. Now that my break is over, I've reinstated my quarterly newsletter.

I was able to get the Google search results for tumbling: poetic thoughts from an anxious mind and myself as an author untangled (mostly) from another author by the same name. And I'm now featured with my photo in Google search results.

I continue to have social media profiles on all the major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Though, I took a very long and complete break from all of them. I have started to slowly re-engage but I am not going to try to maintain an active presence on all of them. I am most active on Instagram, right now – especially in my Stories where I share little tidbits of my daily life and random glimpses into what's on my mind at the moment. As for all other social media, I post when I have new work to share (or sometimes re-share).


Looking to 2022
As I said in my latest newsletter:

"The past [two years have] been a lot. For all of us. I'm not sure I believe the next [two years] will be all the easier, but I do believe we'll be able to handle whatever life throws our way. And I have aspirations of having enough to share with you that the Quarterly Newsletter will once again be quarterly.

I hope 2022 brings you peace and comfort.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support though my long hiatus. I appreciate each and every one of you!"

#WIPWednesday

I'm posting this #WIPWednesday a week early so that I can do my year-in-review retrospective for the final Wednesday of 2021.

Since my last post, I wrote a new essay, "I Hope You Stick Around," and published it on Medium.

You'll find most of my essays these days are published on Medium. That is for a couple reasons. First, by self-publishing the original, I retain all rights to my work and can submit for syndication whenever and wherever I'd like. But, mainly, because very few outlets pay their writers anymore and I am not alright with giving my work away for free to let others profit from it. When I first started writing, I was paid $100 for one essay. That quickly became maybe $20 or $10 per essay. And that quickly became nothing but "exposure." All this while the outlets still earn money through advertising to which they are using their writers' essays to drive views. By publishing on Medium, I at least have the potential to be the one earning the money generated by my words. And I can get "exposure" by syndicating the pieces.

That is not to say I won't ever submit an original to an outlet. In fact, I just did. I had a draft sitting in my folder since summer 2019 and when I saw a call for submissions it'd be perfect for, I gave it an updated edit and sent it off. The outlet doesn't pay much for accepted essays, but at least they do still pay something. And I'd be happy to have a byline with them. I should find out in January if they accepted the piece to run in February.

I also posted a couple graphics on Instagram and remained active in my Instagram Stories almost daily.

And, the biggest news, a new newsletter hit inboxes on Monday and I have high hopes for getting back to it being a quarterly occurrence.

Finalist

I was informed by my publisher that tumbling: poetic thoughts from an anxious mind was a finalist for the Poetry: Narrative Best Book Award by American Book Fest!

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#WIPWednesday

That's right. The #WIPWednesday titles are back!

I think.

For now, at least.

Since my pandemic break, I haven't been writing enough to warrant the weekly posts. I'm still not (to be fair, we're still in the pandemic), but, I think I can ease back in with a monthly update.

So, it's the last Wednesday of the month. Let's give this a try!

The response, last month, to my long and extremely personal essay, "Authenticity," provided inspiration for a couple more essays.

On the 1st of this month, I published "'Who Cares?!?'," in direct response to some of the reactions to coming out as bisexual. It turned out to be another long read.

Then, a couple weeks later, I wanted to make a graphic to share on Instagram but I couldn't fit all I wanted to say in the image. So, I decided to write a caption but I couldn't fit all I wanted to say in the caption. So, I turned it into an essay, "Check Your Bias," the point of which was to condense some of what I had said in my previous essay into a shorter, less personal (and therefore more sharable) format.

I did still have the graphic for Instagram:

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Also, this month was tumbling's book birthday! I hosted a giveaway on Instagram to celebrate.

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I'm still going slow with social media. And I still prefer Instagram to the other platforms, at the moment. Right now, I'm most active in my Instagram Stories – while I usually only make actual posts when I have new work or a significant milestone to share, in my Stories you can catch a glimpse of what's on my mind from day-to-day (like this week's saga of the dead microwave and subsequent kitchen mess just before hosting Thanksgiving).

Authenticity

"Everything I’ve written and shared is true, honest and authentic. But it is not the whole story."

Read my latest essay, "Authenticity," on Medium.

Funny Story

Well, my first haircut since way back in the pre-pandemic times didn't go according to plan. But, at least it motivated me to write again! Read, "It's Only Hair" on Medium.

Getting Out There Again

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Snail's Pace

I'm easing myself back into social media and writing at a snail's pace. I've found I prefer Instagram over the other social media platforms, at the moment. And, with our recent and upcoming travel, I've been more active on my just-for-fun @JoyceFamilyTravels account than anything else.

Travel – and the anxiety it's been causing me – provided the inspiration for my latest essay, "My Anxiety Snowballed, Consuming More and More Areas of My Life," published on Invisible Illness.

Talking it slow is serving me well, right now, as it feels like everything else is coming at me too much, too fast. I'm content with my snail's pace.

The Break is Over

 ..in more ways than one.

As I wrote about in my most recent essay, just published in Invisible Illness, "I Don’t Want Things to Go Back to 'Normal,'" social distancing during the pandemic was a break for me – a break from many aspects of my anxiety disorders. I can't control the fact that this reprieve is coming to an end (and, I wouldn't truly want to if it meant the pandemic continuing to worsen instead of improve).

The break from writing is over! I'm thrilled to be writing more. Though it is Summer Break, once again, and I've never gotten much writing done over Summer with the kids home and our routines thrown into disarray. So, I still don't expect much writing from myself over the next few months.

The break from writing about writing, here on my blog, is over – obviously. Today happens to be Wednesday; though, I don't think I will resume weekly #WIPWednesday posts. I don't want to feel an obligation to post each week. I'll likely just post in the series randomly as I have new work or something to share about my progress.

And, here's the hardest one – my social media break. Is that break over? Completely cutting all social media out of my life was tremendously beneficial. I'm not sure I ever want to go back. Personally, I might not. But, professionally, as a writer, I feel conflicted. Could I just have a website and no social media presence? Sure, I could. But, to be honest, that is the hardest way to be a successful writer these days. I truly don't know how I want to proceed. For now, I think I'll approach social media like I'm approaching things here; I'll just post when I have something to share.

I hope I'll have stuff to share often! But, realistically, I expect I'll ease back into all this at a snail's pace.