Words, WOrds, WORDs

I've learned so much in the last two weeks about writing, publishing, cover art (and the lack of it), and myself.
I like Peaky Blinders FAR too much, and will watch and rewatch the seasons in a bingeworthy fashion far too many times, because most of Netflix is boring.
But mostly, what I've learned is that I can still surprise myself.
Writing is easy enough--until I determine a goal and then realize that I've set a difficult bar. My most frustrating moments in the last few weeks were when I realized I could not achieve what I had set out to do--at least not in the time I had allotted myself. That was hard to recognize, come to terms with, and move past.
So, I've done some hard work this last couple of weeks.
I have achieved more goals in this year than I give myself credit for, but not as many as I'd hoped. That's what 2018 is for, I think.
But, to organize...
Self-publishing as a business decision for myself was the right thing to do. But I made a lot of mistakes. I've had to backtrack and fix some of them, and I've had to take a little more time to move to the next platform--Kindle. Finding an agent for the longer, more substantial books is really rather intimidating, but I'm looking forward to the process. The self-publishing route is preparing me to write to these people to try and sell those books. On that note, taking that time has also made me aware of how many problems there are in my novels. I've got a lot of work to do there too.
In my relaxed moments, I believe I could write all day long. Then I sit down to do it...and I realize I was wrong. Writing is hard work. Creating a beautiful cover is easy enough, but not at first. My learning curve has been long.
At any rate, lessons were learned. I know much more about me, and I'm glad of it. 2018 is going to be beautiful for so many reasons, not the least of which will be my decisions about realizing my author potential.
I hope you look forward to these words and to 2018 as much as I do.