Indie Author Weekly

171: Applying my 2024 Word of the Year to creative writing

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 172

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In this episode, find out how my 2024 Word of the Year — ELEVATE — connects back and translates into my work as a writer... elevating my approach to my work! PLUS, tune in to find out what I am NOT doing this year as an indie author (this decision feels so, so good).

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Hello and welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where I take you on the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author. Today I want to share about my 2024 Word of the Year, and how it applies to book writing. I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and I am an eight time polyamorous romcom. Author Plus, I've also written several business books for solopreneurs. Let's dive into this episode. My 2024 Word of the Year is elevate what this really means what this really encompasses is the concept of challenging myself taking things to the next level, really ensuring that I'm overcoming complacency and also maintaining big picture thinking. So taking an elevated perspective on everything in 2023 my word of the year was Inspire. And that whole concept was about getting inspired by the world around me and, and by myself, and also inspiring others. So to me, this whole concept of the word Elevate is kind of that next step. After getting inspired. Then we move forward with elevating things, we take things to the next level. It's kind of like the implementation side of it. The inspiration comes we have piles of inspiration within us, and then we take action on that. That's kind of the idea here with the word elevate for 2020 For every year when I choose my word of the year, I always like to choose it based on everything that we can think about personally and professionally. So I embody my word of the year as much as possible in all aspects of life and business. And it's really important to me that it also connects back to my work as an author. So how the word elevate connects back to my work as a writer. There's lots of different ways that I could do this. So some of the different ways that elevate could look at in my author career is elevating my writing skills, perhaps by hiring editors or a writing coach or attending writing workshops and that kind of thing, or elevating my promotions and my marketing and the work that I'm doing in boosting sales of my books, all of those different aspects. But what I want to focus on first before those pieces is my relationship to writing. I want to elevate my approach to the work that I'm doing. So as a writer, I'm really focusing this year on elevating my pure playfulness and enjoyment of stare of storytelling and crafting a novel. As you will know from previous episodes on this podcast, I have a lot of impostor syndrome at quite a while back when it came to book writing. And while I have made good progress on that, to really bring it to a place of neutrality, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. In terms of my relationship with writing fiction, and making sure that I'm infusing a lot more play into it. So the relationship that I have to my work in the past, you know, relationships have their ups and downs, but I've always had a very strong relationship to the writing that I do and of late, I feel like my relationship could be taken to another level when it comes to writing. So that's really what I want to focus on. And that to me is very, very important to do again, before I try to uplevel my skills, elevate my skills of a writer or marketing and all of those types of things. I need to improve and elevate the relationship that I have with my writing in order for us to be in the best possible position for then elevating that skill set. So that is what this year is going to be all about when it comes to my work as an indie author, really getting back in touch with the stories that I want to be telling the stories that want to come out of me and the joy of writing those stories of finessing those stories and of sharing those stories. 

coming back to the joy of writing, writing because it feels so wonderful. Having fun with writing, not feeling as though, okay, I told myself I was going to write today. I guess I'm going to write, but rather really getting my mindset around. I am so excited that I get to spend today writing this week writing, really working on that relationship another thing that I am doing this year or rather not doing this year, is that I am not planning on setting any marketing goals as an indie author. I'm still going to track book sales and those types of things because I find that there's a lot of good information in that and that's really important data to track but I am going into this year without any expectations in terms of book marketing and sales. This year, any book sales are simply going to be the cherry on the top of the sundae that is writing the books and releasing them to the world. That is what matters most this year. And I think that by having this type of approach to my writing, it's also going to relieve that pressure and allow more space for elevating the fun of the journey without limitations or self imposed barriers around requirements from making my book marketable all of those pieces and this is very important because as I've shared about in previous episodes here on the anti author weekly podcast when I released my previous novels, small town stilettos I published it this past summer, and when I released it, it did not get the type of traction that I was hoping for in terms of sales and that type of thing. And that was not an enjoyable experience. It simply wasn't and so this year, I am planning to publish two novels. And I want to go in with it with the idea that if I make one sale, that's amazing. Fantastic. That's great. And also there is no expectation on it. There is that the the sales themselves are not the purpose of it at all. The writing the book, and then sharing it with the world and whoever is interested in it can enjoy it. That is what matters. And this really brings me back to where I was when I first started writing novels. About six years ago. It was simply about I have a story inside of me. I really want to share it I really want to write it down. And this is so much fun to write and to rework it and to get it to where I want it to be and now I'm going to put it out into the world and anyone who wants it gets to read it. That was kind of my attitude when I first started writing these novels, and I want to get back in touch with that. I want to reconnect with that. So that's a really big thing this year and the the weight off of my shoulders. Feels really lovely. There's simply no pressure, no expectation. I'm still publishing the books because I do want to share them with the world. But really setting no goals or expectations around book sales, the number of people buying the number of dollars made any of that the focus is entirely on writing the story. Having fun with at that writing journey, finessing the story making it as good as it can be, and then releasing it to the world and sharing it with anyone who is interested in hearing the story and reading the story. That is what this year is all about. That to me is having that elevated experience and embodying the word elevate as my 2024 Word of the Year as it applies to me as an indie author. So there you have it. That is what I wanted to share with you today. If you have any additional questions about this or if you have any other topics you would like me to address here on the Andy author weekly podcast. I would love to hear it. Please submit your topic ideas your feedback at Sagan morrow.com/question. That my friend is a wrap for today's episode of indie author weekly access the shownotes for this episode, including all links and additional resources at Sagan morrow.com/podcast. And feel free to share your thoughts on this episode on Twitter or Instagram. You can take me my handle is at Sagan lives. Please take two minutes to rate and review in the other weekly on Apple podcasts. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will see you next week for another episode of indie author weekly


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Sagan Morrow

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