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It turns out it's really difficult to try and make every book a genius book. I just need to lean into my strengths and have more fun.
The habits books I've read have pointed out that you need to celebrate when your perform a new habit, which will help cement it into your brain. This makes sense. Remember how excited people get when a kid starts walking or crawling? Positive reinforcement.
But my last fallow period, I found that every time I opened my manuscript, I would think about how much I hated publishing, due to a lot of backend stresses at publishing with my early work. I started feeling terrible every time I worked. Not good for habit forming.
In a similar way I've recently found myself thinking about all of the ways my work *hasn't* broken out over the last ten years now every time I open a manuscript, and keep wondering what my next trick could possibly be to stay competitive in a very competitive market.
As a mid-career writer without a breakout, you're always aware of the market moving to next new shiny penny. As ever, I know I need to keep my eyes on my own work, but it's wild to see stuff breakout now that's a lot like I did 10 years ago, but the market just...Wasn't there
And like a lot of my peers, I get that our earlier work getting midlist success and awards/critical attention did help make it possible for a lot of weird books now to get greenlit. But there's just so much in this industry you can't control. And that's hard.
I am constantly working to one-up my own work, which does get more difficult when you try and stick to the book a year plan. If you have a winning formula, at least you know what works. But I have "well I guess the next ones just needs to be GENIUS."
Anyway, the writing struggle never goes away. The stakes and the creative and technical bars just get much higher.
