A classic lull.

I'm having one of those classic lulls, the low ebb of a cycle.  I'm glad I've owned a business long enough to recognize it for what it is.  I just need to keep on trucking and the cycle will turn upward at some point.

Here's the thing -- Everything has it's ups and downs, and you can't always be on the high end of a cycle.

Most of the lull comes from other folk.  Waiting for everyone else. There is nothing I can do about that. I just have to be patient.

I continue to get good reviews -- I've gotten 8 four star reviews and 43 five star reviews for Led to the Slaughter.  Most of the later ones are from strangers -- so I'm feeling pretty good about that.  I've been lucky not to get that one or two bad reviews that almost every book gets, even really good ones, so I'm way up the rankings on Average Customer Reviews.  Out of 64,402 horror novels, I'm ranked in the top 3/10ths of 1%.  Tuskers is also doing really well, in the top 1/2 of 1%.  Those are some rarefied heights.   (This does not reflect sales, unfortunately.) 

That helps me when I have moments of doubt -- like right now.  Everything I write seems to be shit right now.  I know that's not true.  I'm not letting it stop me.

I still feel the desire to write. 

(I woke up with an entire s/f short story this morning in my head.  I'm not going to write it.  No point.  The s/f people have their thing and I've already learned that my thing is not their thing and I'm not going to knock my head against the wall.)

I seem to be regaining some bad habits.  When I started out, I'd had a lot of time to think about what I'd done wrong, work-habit wise, in my first career.  I had a set of rules about what not to do.

I was very focused and disciplined about this.  Since I've had some success finishing books, I've been letting some of those rules slide a bit, which I can now see was a big mistake.

I need to get back to my original approach and stick to it.

This is one of those moments when it's easy to take my eyes off the ball.  I have to continue to be diligent and conscientious and I'll come out the other side.  Like I said, I learned that in the business.  Sometimes years would go by and nothing would happen though I felt I was doing the right things.  I just kept the faith, kept trying to do what I thought were the right things, and in the end -- the cycle would turn and my efforts would be rewarded.

Sometimes success just comes from being plodding past the point where most people give up.