S01E27: When Q2 is reviewed

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda review Q2!! 

Next week Sam and Matilda will reveal the day-job skills that help self publishing.

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

Train journey sprint video: https://youtu.be/NF4qYm3U6Q4?si=Ydsit_OEPiwfqmk5

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books About Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ads courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello, and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Samantha Cummings, here with my co-host, Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through Missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way, and this week's topic is going to be our Q2 review.

I don't know why I did all that.

Before we get into that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

Would you like to start with a win or a whinge?

Okay, I genuinely cannot go into detail because I am just a living win right now.

So for listeners who are not privy to our conversation for the podcast, we normally talk about 20 minutes for the podcast just to have like a little bit of catch up.

We miss this during the week quite a bit.

So we just have like a hi, how's your week been?

Today I have just talked, it sounds like an hour, 20 minutes straight about my endless string of amazing things that are going on in my life, which sounds really boastful, but really all of them come out of this conversation we have every week.

We were just saying how we've been doing this for about, you know, about two quarters now, so about six months.

It feels like this is, my life is unrecognizable compared to where it was.

Yeah.

And in the last two weeks, I feel like I've lived a thousand lives.

I've been to the self-publishing show live conference.

I've done a writing shoot with a friend, and I've been on a holiday for a week by myself to Corfu.

And just, it feels like I have distilled everything I've been working on for the last six months.

And it's all sort of crystallizing in my head.

Like imagine me in a pool floating under the blue sky, like a blue Grecian sky, and I'm full of tropical fruit from the breakfast buffet, and I'm thinking all the good thoughts.

And just like my mind's crystallized everything.

And I feel so much like I really want to remember this time when every moment along the way has felt like tough or, you know, small or unrecognized.

And you don't notice how much you're changing until you have a big like maybe step away from things.

And I just have felt like all the stuff I've been thinking about over the last six months, all the things I've been doing, kind of everything in different aspects of my life has really come together this week, just by having a step away.

So I've just got wins, innumerable wins.

That I'm just gonna say, Sam, you can attest to that fact.

And I will not go into detail because that is a whole podcast in its own and I will maybe come back.

Yeah, you are a winning machine right now.

I have, I'm not gonna say any win-jus, I don't have any win-jus.

I similarly feel like I was just saying before that I don't even remember what kind of idiot I was in January, but I know that I'm so far away from that right now.

Like I feel like I have, I'm just a completely different person.

And I feel like I'm on the cusp of loads of great things.

And my win, I would say, of the week is that this weekend, I was kind of pulling some things together.

I've got a bunch of books that I'm sending out to book reviewers on Instagram.

And I was making some very fun things that are going into the boxes.

And I'm not gonna say what those things are because like they're gonna be surprises for the people that get the books.

But it was just, it's just so fun to be like, to be an indie author and to be in charge of the stuff that I'm actually sending to people.

Like it's such a nice, close relationship rather than having a publishing house being like, oh, we're gonna send a PR box to people.

Like I get to do the PR boxes.

And I didn't realize how much I loved that until I started doing it.

And now it's like, I get to send people presents in the post and I love giving people presents.

So.

We think like the opportunity of being an indie author is sometimes a thing that we forget.

Like you get to be your own publishing house, which can be a pain when it's hard, but when it's going well, you're just like, oh my goodness, my lead author is getting star treatment right now.

They're getting all the book boxes.

They're getting everything they could possibly want.

And it's like, you are your own lead author, but it's great.

Yeah, I made that newspaper, that fake newspaper for my book series.

And it was so much fun to know.

I specifically had chosen a thing that was within my wheelhouse.

So I chose a bonus feature that I knew I would find easy, I could do well.

And I sent it to various friends to, you know, show them what I'd be doing.

Everybody that I showed it to, or even mentioned it to at the Sam, Ocean, Joe Live was really excited about it and wanted to see it and wanted to make their own ones.

I had people ask me how they make it.

And I sent it to a friend in publishing last week.

So I talked about a short story I put in there.

And she in fact works in publishing, has just got a new job in like a cozy mystery related company.

And she was so impressed as well.

And I was like, oh my goodness, I am nailing it.

You're nailing what your book box is.

Just like, it's so nice to feel the benefit of self-publishing.

Wins all around.

Yes, yeah.

Wins all around.

God, I was gonna say in the next part, but in our little list of things to say, you get to introduce what we're doing.

Yeah, well, I was gonna say, hopefully we have got more wins all around now, because we are on to our topic of the week.

It is our second quarterly review, we're reviewing Q2.

What goals did you set for the quarter and how well did they go?

Well, let me just get my post-it from my post-it wall, which I have many post-its up there.

I love to have, like I'm such a visual person, so I have to have all of my goals, like front and center.

I can't work from a computer because I'll forget things exist, which is why I have millions of tabs open.

So my visual tabs are post-its, and I wrote down all of my goals.

And I have ticked off most of them for this quarter, which I'm very happy with.

So I'll quickly go through the list and then say like whether I did it or not.

So it won't take too long, but this is kind of like a good overview of just like the random stuff that us indie authors set ourselves.

So my first goal for Q2 was to publish one of my novellas.

And it's not a novella series that I'm continuing really, but I just wanted to get this one that I'd written out of the way and kind of start Q2 feeling like, like sweeping something out of the way so that I could continue doing the stuff that I want to do.

So I wanted to publish my novella and I did.

So very happy to take that off the list.

And one of my other ones was to start the edits for and hopefully finish the edits for the book that I'm publishing in September.

I started the edits.

I haven't finished them, but I am so close.

I have like 40 pages left of edits.

So I'm so close to the end.

So I'm gonna say that's kind of a tip, even though it's crept into Q3.

One of the big ones that I had, which I didn't think I was gonna do this and I put it off for so long and only just scraped in at the end is contacting book reviews on Instagram.

And I was so scared to do that because I thought like, who's gonna care about me DMing them saying, do you want a copy of my book?

But as it turned out, quite a lot of people were really interested in having a copy of my book.

So that's like a big tick.

I wanted to release a short story, which was a prequel to my werewolf series.

I released that.

I signed up to Book Funnel.

And yeah, like, and one of the ones, one of the things that I had on my list, which is kind of still ongoing is rebranding.

But this is like, that's like a bigger topic that I think is going to take me a while to wrap my head around, but I do have plans for it.

So I'm okay with saying that I kind of can tick that off my quarter too, because I thought about it and I'm kicking it down the road on purpose.

So I'm happy with that.

But like all of my stuff, I did.

And I was like, okay, my conversation is bigger than that.

So I think, interestingly, you tick most things off.

The only thing that you didn't take off was one that was very formless.

There was like a big, just like, conceptually rebrand the entire company in ways that you haven't defined.

It's very different to publish this short story.

So how is that informing, then, your Q3 goals?

So my Q3 goals is way more like leaning more into the brand that I'm setting up for myself.

And that's all kind of on the back of this series that I've got going at the moment.

So I've obviously got the book out at the moment, Cursed the Wild, which came out last year.

It came out on the 4th of July, 2023.

So it just turned one and the next book that's coming out in September is the second in the trilogy, then the third book obviously is coming out next year.

So this series is really like my lead into my new brand because previously I've just like jumped around and this is my first full series of this genre that I'm writing in.

So, yeah, I feel happy like going into Q3, I have somebody that I'm like I've got to contact, there's somebody I want to contact, who is really great at author branding and pulling together like visuals for social media and doing websites and stuff, which I've always wanted to do it myself because I kind of do website stuff and like a little bit of branding stuff in my day job, so I always thought, like, oh, I can do that myself, like, I know how to do that.

But as it turns out, I don't want to do that for myself.

That's what I've come to realize is that I don't like, I don't want to be like, that's too much for my brain right now, because I'm so focused on trying to just like, write and edit and release this series to really get my foot on the gas.

Yeah, like that's like, and that's like really where I should be spending my energy and I don't want to be splitting my time between like the business and the branding stuff.

I just Yeah, I just recently decided that it wasn't bringing me joy.

So I think I should give it to somebody who, who it will bring joy to and money.

So yeah, so I'm going into Q3 and having a book release in Q3.

Yeah, I think it just will all kind of make sense for me to be talking to this brand person whilst I'm in, like, in the beast effectively, that makes sense in my mind, I just feel like Are you going to add more goals as you go through the quarter?

Because sounds like last quarter, you had a lot of very, like, small concrete goals and now, and the people didn't use the amorphous one.

And now it sounds like you've not really got any short, doable things.

I have a couple of shorter, doable things.

So I also really need to get on top of my email automations.

So I have, I think I put that on my Q1 goals.

But I wasn't really in a place where I just wasn't, I wasn't business minded in Q1.

And now I feel like I really am thinking more like a business.

Like I really do feel like a shift in my mindset.

So email automations are a huge, like that's probably one of my biggest things in Q3.

It's just really nailing my emails.

And I feel like that kind of ties in with my branding stuff as well, because I do want to re-brand my emails.

So I need to, I haven't done this yet, but I'm going to come up with like a plan of like, when I'm going to get some re-branding stuff and how I'm going to process that into my emails and social media and everything.

So yeah, I think Q3 is effectively just business and branding at the moment.

I don't know if that's a good idea.

Yeah, we'll see.

I don't know either.

I'm not sure.

We've got a conversation, we've got our monthly chats coming up in the next couple of weeks where we do a whole day session.

And I feel like we've kind of talked a few times about that being a big finance talk.

So I think some stuff might come out of that as well.

Definitely made the things that I want to be looking at in terms of like the finance side of business that I want to look at in Q3.

But that isn't on my Q3 list at the moment.

And my Q3 list is very much an extension of my Q2 list in a way that's going to sound like I'm just carrying over the same goals, but actually I'm doing different things with them.

So this is why I'm surprised by your Q2 list being so short.

My Q2 list was unreasonable.

So mine came out, and in fact, it wasn't a Q2 list, like I shouldn't have called it that.

I should have called it like an, all the things I want to change in my business list.

I just put it in Q2 thinking I would somehow become a superhero in Q2, which I always think I'm the most delusional person.

Yes, your list making.

I like, this is why my post-it situation is good, because you can only fit so much in a post-it, which means that you have to make your tasks bite-sized and you make lists in like tiny handwriting on pages and pages.

Yeah, in fact, I had a roll of brown paper, like a very large castle paper, a very long roll, I just have an extendable table.

So I just take my paper and roll the paper out.

But we talked about this before, that like we're both quite visual, like hands on thinkers.

So I made a lot of lists and like, and then connect things together and make my maps and then distill that down, distill it down.

And I was looking at the whole business and it was really, really helpful.

I now have these unbelievably unwieldy large pieces of paper that I need to go back and kind of reorganize.

But I've got pictures of the important sections that I look back at and they're really, really helpful.

But I think because I was in Q2, I put everything I need to do on my Q2 goals list, which was foolish and is delusional and it's just the way that I am.

So I'm, no apologies here.

I think that I possess all the time in the world and I constantly, constantly plan for everything going right.

I never, never allow for any, like a day of sickness, things being harder than I thought they were gonna be.

I just believe I will develop superpowers at any moment and I'm gonna be ready to take that on.

I constantly believe that I'm gonna inherit Bernard's watch, which we have referenced a number of times, people who are not like English millennials, I've just lost this conversation.

But Bernard's watch was just a watch where you could stop time and he did all these things while time was stopped.

And I think that has destroyed my life.

Like my ability to prioritize, to make plans.

Because when I was a kid, I watched the TV program where you could just stop time and do things.

And I believe that's possible for myself.

I just haven't found the right watch.

I'm still trying to rub the Queen's nose every time.

Or if you have to be a get, I rub the Queen's nose just in case.

Another very niche reference there.

Such a good, yeah.

I mean, that's a book as well.

So it's like a literary reference there.

We're very literate on the podcast.

So yes, so I made my Q2 list.

That was really me lying to myself about what Q2 might contain.

Even though it is the biggest part of my year for my day job.

And I, the last couple of years, have been in a community play.

So even more delusional than you might think.

I know I made myself like a lifetime's width of goals list.

I did it in my busiest quarter ever.

But having said that, I did really well.

So, you know when you've done something really stupid and you don't want to look at it, because you know it's so stupid, you're like, if I don't look at it, it isn't real.

So, I spent quite a lot of this quarter not looking at this list, because I knew I'd done the stupid thing and made myself an unattainable list.

But I actually have snuck a few looks at it, and just those sort of like, it's got, it's seeped into my brain.

I've done loads of things on it.

I've done loads of things.

However, I have not obviously completed.

There were, I think, 10 things on it, which is really for 10 big, big things, such as learn and do Amazonasks.

It was actually really, just, that's like a year ago.

So easy.

It's just, yeah.

Yeah, they were, they were of varying sizes.

Some of them were doable.

Like one of them was like constant bookbub applications, which I have done and has become a habit and is now very easy.

And I have like, I'm signing on my phone every time I get a rejection, putting an application in.

I have got a bookbub, done.

That's ticked off.

That was on my Q2 goals list, done.

So there are things on here that were small, but some of them were really, really amorphous, such as one is generate backlist sales from newsletter, which is more an aspiration than an actual like targeted goal.

So I would say all the things on this list.

So there's things through social media, my newsletter, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, bookbub ads, and then bookbub applications.

And some of these break down into multiple parts.

So you want to become a marketing department.

Yeah, while maintaining a full time job and both business time of year and being in a play.

Yeah, that's the level of my solution.

So I didn't do all of that.

However, I did make a start in almost every single goal without really spending too much time thinking about Q2 goal list because I knew it was unrealistic.

So I think just setting the intention in my mind has allowed me to do something in all the areas and to sort of see where my attention has gone.

So one of the things that I talked about was in the last couple of weeks while I've been away, a lot of things have come together in my mind.

And one thing I'm always waiting for is that ideal perfect day where you're awake and you're full of ideas and you can just really crystal clear look at everything.

And I was like, on that day, I will go through my Q2 goals list, and I will really crystallize down, I'll make myself a planet.

Everything I'm going to do, because what I needed to do was break down all my big ideas into small ideas.

And I actually hate doing that because it requires so much brain power and so much three-dimensional chess.

Anyway, it requires just too many moving parts.

So I often think, I'll wait till I'm feeling really with it.

And on the last day of my holiday, I'm going to have to come home, my flight was delayed, and I did it.

Instead, I was not feeling fantastic.

I had written 2,000 words in the airport, on the floor, I'll wait for a delayed flight.

I just had so many, I didn't need the crystal clear magical day, I just needed to be in the right mindset.

I just needed to be far enough along that I thought enough things.

I mean, relaxing.

So on this day, when I was sat on a very stuffy plane, just on the tarmac for a couple of hours, waiting for the plane to go, and no one seemed to know where the plane was going, including the captain who at some point said, I don't know where we're not going anywhere.

They keep telling me we're going to go, and then we don't go, and I'm going to call England and ask them where we're not going, but I can't tell you why.

So in that situation, I just got out of my planner, and I looked at my Q2 list, and I wrote down, I'm going to show you on the video, and hopefully, Sam, you can see how much nonsense that is.

I can read it, it makes sense to me, but it is every Q2 goal broken down, and I put it into smaller sub goals, and there are some things on here that I could just put into a calendar, a weekly calendar to do every single week.

And one of my big goals is, like one day on a weekend is to look ahead for the next week and break everything down and make myself a list, because what I get stuck on every single time is the thinking energy and the decision energy, and we talk about the starting energy for things.

I just don't have that during the week, and I constantly berate myself and think, oh, do better next week, and I'm just not going to, because I'm a tired person who does too many things, and work is hard.

So if I get at the weekend, just make myself a plan and say, okay, every Monday is Amazon ads, this week what you're going to do is go back to this book, read the lessons and implement the new ads, or I have to sit on a Monday evening and just do that.

So I just, I think having a bit of extra time away on my whole day really made me able to sit back and stop judging myself and stop saying, there's going to come a time where I magically was less quote unquote lazy or disorganized, and just be like, this is just the way that I am, this way I think it is not lazy or disorganized, it is just not magically or powerful.

So I need to work around that rather than trying to constantly work against it.

And that felt really good and forgiving.

So I've made myself page to page of notes in a really good way to break down all my big ideas into smaller ideas.

And then so my Q3 goals are implement the next steps on that.

And some of it I've just said, actually can't take place until this other one takes place.

So I've pushed it back and it may not get done in Q3.

So just implement next steps.

I want to replant my schedule because I pushed back my books.

I've ordered a new planner, like a wall plan to put that on.

That's been really good.

I've broken that down as well.

I'm going to make an actual launch plan rather than sort of thinking possibly I might do these things again.

I've broken that down and set long term goals is also my Q3 is.

So now I'm looking at it, it doesn't like too many things.

But better to watch, I'll get better to watch this quarter is what I will do.

Yes.

It feels a bit bummed right now.

I'm sure it does.

So far, I've only got three things on my Q3 goals.

One of them is also to take a writing course I've already paid for and I just need to sit down and do it.

But that's kind of like a fun thing in my mind.

That's like a fun thing to do.

Yeah, I feel like, I mean, I haven't, to be fair, like I've been so busy the last week that I haven't even, every week on like Saturday and Sunday, I go through my planner and I like recap the week before and then I make plans for the next week.

And I haven't done that like this month, like for this first week this month.

So I really, yeah, I really need to get back into doing that.

And just like, this is just for myself, I'm gonna say this out loud.

So the last few weeks, I've been a really naughty girl and not used my office.

And I've been working in the living room.

And that is naughty Sam behavior.

I have this beautiful keyboard, which is just like my pride and joy.

And I sit in here and I type on it and I haven't used it for weeks.

So I'm neglecting my beautiful purple keyboard and that can no longer happen.

So for Q3, I'm gonna say this right here, my Q3 goal is to sit in this office every day and even for half an hour, do something.

I am going to join you in that because you can see behind me is this beautiful writing desk, which I love and it has beautiful pictures around it and I set it up as a ghost area.

But I have been writing in bed in the mornings, which I do in winter because it's so cold in the UK.

And I just never got out of the habit of it and I just stay in bed and I'm not as focused and I don't, it feels unprofessional.

And yeah, I feel better when I come to this desk.

So I'm also going to become an office writer early.

I'll be at this desk.

Yeah, same.

Yeah, tomorrow I'm going to be back in here.

Because this is, because it's like my only, because I live in such a small flat.

This is the only room that I have where I can come in here and I'm on my own.

My dog doesn't even come in here.

She's like not bothered because there's no food in here.

So she like, even she leaves me alone.

And yeah, as soon as I come in here, I am in working mode.

I'm like a different person.

And I put on whatever like writing video that I'm watching on YouTube.

Usually it's like writing on a train, which is one of my favorite ones.

Maybe you should link, maybe I'll put the link in the show notes.

What's the show notes?

I love watching what I'm writing.

Yes.

Yeah, it's so good.

Yeah, so I need to put my little train video on and just work in here and be the good girl.

Like, will that be the professional writer?

That is where you'll be if you were, we talked about this recently, if you're a millionaire author, we have both been reading Writes of Riches, which is kind of thinking about yourself in your future state of when you are, you know, the full-time author, anyone that you want to.

One of the activities that I did when I was on my holiday was a test, I was like, live your millionaire author ideal day.

And like, what would you do?

Would you have a lie in?

Would you have a long soak in the tub?

Would you get straight to work?

And I was staying in a very lovely adult-only hotel in Corfu where it's sunny every day and there's a pool outside and there's a beautiful buffet of delicious Greek food for breakfast and dinner.

So I practiced a couple of times finding my ideal millionaire author day.

And in that, I didn't write in bed.

I set up my laptop on a little table on the balcony and I looked out over the ocean and I had been swimming all morning and reading all morning, and then I typed, typed, typed.

And then I went for more swim, then went for more food, and I was done.

I wrote 2,000 words a day very easily.

But I still sat at a desk and was like, this is my professional job.

I felt very Barbara Cartland, you know, just like incredible lap of luxury, but still writing very prolifically.

It's wonderful.

Yeah, I liked that you used the word practiced, that you practiced like being an author, being a millionaire author, because I think sometimes we think we should just be like, just live the life that you want to live.

But there is, you'll never know the actual life or like the time schedule that you want to follow unless you practice different ones.

Like you might be like, oh, maybe I want to get up early and write in the morning.

You don't have to stick to it, but it's kind of a fun idea to think like, I could practice that for a bit and see how it feels rather than like announcing to the world that that's my process.

Like I think practicing is like a nice way to...

Yeah, because like I have for a long, long time, I used to start work at 10 a.m.

in my job when I was living in Hong Kong.

And so it was very easy then for me to get up and write for two hours before work, because like getting to Starbucks at 8 a.m.

to write two hours is quite easy.

And I can wake up early.

I can work early.

So I do that during the week.

And that's what my brain is most awake.

I find it hard to write in the evening.

I find it takes longer in the evening.

It's not as satisfying.

So on a work day, I prefer to write in the morning.

And on weekends, I keep beating myself up because I can't get up and I can't write anymore.

Why am I not even getting started like 10, 11 in the morning?

It's like, actually, when I was in my, my Millionaire Author Day, I didn't even start till 2 p.m.

And I still, with ease, got 2,000 words written.

And like with, I mean, unbelievable ease.

Because I was so relaxed, and I did bits of writing in between.

I almost didn't notice, like it was no different to another day that I'd been relaxing in a hotel.

And I swam all day.

I swam and read, and I went back swimming and reading afterwards.

And that turned into another day.

Like I could have spent all day beating myself about trying to write 2,000 words, starting first thing in the morning, feeling tired, feeling annoyed at myself, feeling lazy, and thinking like, oh, why are 500 words taking so long to get out?

It could take me a couple of hours.

Then I go take a break, but feel annoyed that I'm taking a break.

Whereas actually finding a different routine that works better for you is, you know, wonderful.

And I think what I might start doing with my weekend days, I still, because I'm not a full-time author, I have a day job.

I find I use my weekends to practice, like having a professional writing day.

So I still want to kind of dedicate those days to writing, but I think I'm going to use the mornings just to read.

I'll go to the library and I'll just read.

I might do some marketing things, but I might just read.

And then in the afternoon, tap, and then in the evening, do something fun.

Rather than, like, I have been making it a chore by trying to make the day as I think it should be.

And it can take me literally all day, including, like, into the evening, including late at night to write 3,000 words.

It's like, why am I...

I'm making it feel unpleasant.

Sort of because I think writing should feel like hard work, right?

That's what proper writing is.

But also because I'm trying to make it fit this mold of a day that I think it should be.

So, practicing a new sort of day was phenomenal.

And that's how I'm going to try it from now on.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like that.

I like the idea of practicing stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I'm going to maybe try and schedule in different...

Because Sundays tend to be my bigger working days.

Saturday is my admin day.

And then just being outside as much as possible.

But maybe on Sundays, I should be trying...

I'm going to write this on my Q3 goals.

It's like Sunday is practice day.

So try writing at different times.

I think it really was lovely to think about it as like practicing your millionaire author day, like I do a writing day, especially because I was in the beautiful location.

But like you can do that where you live, right?

You could say I'm going to start by having like a little pedicure in my own house.

Like that's how I would like to start my day for a millionaire.

I would like to have a pedicure.

And I would like to take the dogs to a new location for a walk every day.

So I will try that this Sunday.

And just, yeah, I think, think of it not as like, how can I make writing fit into my life as it is now, but thinking of it as what is my ideal life and how can I make that like manifested, not manifested, how can I make that manifest as a real on an everyday life?

Mm-hmm, yeah, mm-hmm, yes, it's, it's as much an important thing to do as the actual writing.

It's like finding what feels good at the same time as...

Yeah, and I think...

Sorry.

Yeah, I'm not going to answer my Q3 goal list, because it's already long, having said this out loud, I do see that now.

This has been a good session.

It's not that I've got too many things on it.

I think normally I would like to have goals that are complete to win that quarter, but actually I'm fine with them not being completable.

I think a lot of my goals, I don't necessarily want to make smart goals.

Because I've got more things I could possibly do right now, I would like to just follow the goals that feel best, that are working best, and to leave it somewhat flexible rather than make myself follow a really rigid path that isn't necessarily working.

Because I've just started thinking recently about like, oh, maybe I should do some TikTok.

I keep being drawn towards a different podcast about that.

I think in my CliftonStrengths, I've got a very high learner and lots of things to learn.

I've got only green strength basically.

And I think I would enjoy learning TikTok.

I want to try and lean into that and make better use of my enjoyment of learner.

So I think I might try doing that partially just because it would use that strength of learner and would maybe I could use the time if I'm too tired to write and do other things.

I'd be like, oh, I'd love to just think about this and strategize about this.

So I want to be open to kind of have those strategy things.

We've been talking a bit recently about, it feels like things have changed so much over the last six months that I definitely feel like I am very close to leveling up.

And I think at some point, very soon, I'm going to put my foot to the pedal and give it all the gas and go.

But before then, I really want to have dabbled in lots of different things.

It's a bit like when people who are married say, oh, take advantage of your single life when you can.

Because when you're old and married, you can't do all the fun things.

I feel like right now I'm still in my single girl era of self-publishing authorship.

I'm not relying on this for my living.

I get to dabble a bit, and I want to take advantage of that rather than kicking myself for not being in a certain place.

I want my goals to maybe be bigger than is necessarily sensible, just to give myself some wiggle room to play around.

Yeah, I think that's a really good thing to have set up for yourself, is the idea of it's okay to have a little bit of flirty fun with different things before you're in actual business, where you feel deviating is trying to turn a cruise ship around rather than just being in a canoe and being able to just steer in a different direction.

Don't know why boats came into that, but why are we here?

But yeah, so current deviation feels like it's no risk, and I won't take advantage of that rather than necessarily tie myself into things too soon.

Or I'm delusional and I just have no way of making realistic goals, and that's what I'm telling myself.

So either or, we'll see.

But I'm feeling good.

I think my Q2 goals being too big went well for me.

My Q3 goals being too big, hopefully also will go well.

So yes, but also so good to wrap up goals, and just to have goals and talk about them, it just feels like these discussions are changing everything.

Yeah, I mean, last year, the only goals that I ever had, like previous to this year, was just like write a book, edit a book, publish a book.

That was it.

That was it.

That literally was as far as it went.

So yeah, we are winning, and we are soon to be millionaire authors, I am sure of it.

I've already got my day planned, so I know how my millionaire author day goes.

You say well, Sonny.

It's got to now.

Oh dear, right.

Well, last week, we forgot that we were doing the Q2 review this week, so it was kind of a lie by mistake.

We didn't mean to fib, but we did.

So for next week's topic, we are actually returning to the series of real life versus writing, and the episode is going to be our day job skills that help with self-publishing.

And I hope that you are all looking forward to that as much as we are.

We are now two weeks of looking forward to that.

We're very excited.

Yes, we're super excited, really prepared.

Definitely have been thinking about this.

No, I'm looking forward to kind of looking at...

I think it's something that you take for granted in yourself, and I'm looking forward to doing a quick review of my own skills and feeling good about that.

So, yeah, I think there's so much...

Fingers crossed.

I have got skills.

I think take for granted is a good way to put it, yeah.

I think I've got a lot to talk about in this, and hopefully it will leave me kind of feeling better about my day job, because I think it's very easy to think of it as like the thing that you're doing when you want to be writing, but actually it is a thing that you're doing when you are getting paid to learn useful skills.

So, great.

Yes.

And I do, yeah, given that today is my first day of working work following a holiday, I do feel resentful towards my job, because it does involve no swimming in Greece at all.

But it does.

It is such a useful job.

It has taught me so many things that I would not have learned if I'd sat by myself in a room just writing.

So, yeah, I think it's good to reflect on this and to maybe find ways to lean into it and make more of it as well.

So I think there'll be a useful conversation next week and I'm looking forward to it.

One thing that I wanted to end the podcast by saying was that now we are two quarters into the podcast.

When I was at the self-publishing show live, I met people who had listened to the podcast and who loved the podcast, which is so nice to hear.

It was, I mean, amazing.

It's sort of weird to think, like, well, I think it was just our private conversation where we talk about ourselves being hilarious geniuses.

Other people are listening to it.

But, you know, great.

And if you are listening to this and you find it useful...

And realizing the truth.

Yeah.

Now we are two quarters through.

As a celebration with us, it would be great if you just picked at least one person in your life that you think would benefit from listening to this and recommend this to a friend.

More than one person would be great, but pick one person at least and just say, you would like this podcast, give it a listen and suggest an episode for them.

When I suggest episodes, I always pick, I think it's episode number eight, the butter episode, because I think it is the one that is most useful and is funniest probably.

But pick the episode that you like and recommend it to a friend.

That would be very helpful to us and we would love it as a celebration for our second quarter of podcasting.

Yes.

Yes, please do that.

And like and subscribe and all of that jazz.

And leave us a review if you're feeling generous.

And until next time, have a good week.

Goodbye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

Stay tuned for our next episode, and don't forget to subscribe to learn how to write your way to financial success.