July 20th marked the end of Paid To Dance, a book series I had been working on since 2016. It is the end of an era, but I am ready to close the book on this particular chapter (pardon the pun) and get started on something fresh.
I’m going to take it easy for the rest of 2018. It has been a big year and a relentless rollercoaster past four months in particular. Every area of my life has been touched: my work, my health, my friends and family.
I never thought I would take a ‘break’ from writing and publishing, but for some time I’ve increasingly feeling the need to pause.
I have pushed through the challenges determined to stay on track with my writing, publishing, marketing and promotion, trying to maintain consistent with my blog and a number of social media platforms. I want to take some time to review my strategies, to ensure I’m making the most of these platforms and not wasting time.
There are some pressing non-writing matters that are increasingly demanding my attention. Since leaving my full-time job last year my attention has been reduced from all things creative to merely surviving. But I don’t want to just survive anymore. I need to re-establish stability so that I can properly focus on my passion again.
So I’m going to take a break, until mid-late September, at least. I’m not going to stop writing completely- I simply can’t. I’m just going to take a step back from blogging and social media. I will try and keep up my daily writing inspiration posts if I can.
I’m not going to be launching any new books in 2018, however I am going to republish all of my short stories that I had as individual Kindle ebooks, that were deleted last year when my Kindle publishing account was shut down. I may even pop a few new ones up there
For the remainder of the year I’m going to work on getting the first of my Irish crime novels finished. This series is my ‘life’s work’, my passion project, the books I was born to write. I’m also going to make a start a collection of women’s intrepid travel stories.
I want to take this opportunity to sincerely THANK everyone who is coming along on this writing journey with me, as fellow writers and readers, likers and sharers. Your support means the world to me, and I hope that by taking this little breather, I can come back bigger and better.
Kate Kelsen 