Lately I haven’t been posting to my blog, Threads, or Instagram accounts, and I was feeling so guilty. When you’re trying to build a following or community to promote something like a book, every message and piece of advice tells you to be consistent, to batch your work and keep posting!

I wouldn’t be the first to point out how exhausting and demanding it is to constantly need to create and post content. It’s even more taxing because the time, energy, and creativity I give to making these consistent posts takes away from my ability to actually create the books and stories I want to write and sell.

The guilt from taking a step back on my content creation didn’t help either, because then it hindered me from writing my books, and I became trapped in this lose-lose cycle. Frustrating as it was, I decided something had to give.

My thoughts went back to an old book I read, called The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight, in which she shares the concept of a f**k-budget. In the most simple terms, we each have a certain budget with a fixed amount of F’s to give about anything. There are the basics that everyone needs to care about: jobs, family, bills etc. and then the personalised ones: e.g. the sport you like, a hobby you have, an interest which fascinates you. Usually, if you’re not rude, you’ll also allocate a certain number of F’s for the topics which you choose to care about (even if you don’t) because someone you love cares about them. For me, while I couldn’t care less about horses personally, I still listen to or participate in events for my sister who does care.

These f**ks given is another way to describe the energy we have, and despite the funny language, it is a great way to give ourselves a reality check.

I realised that I didn’t have an infinite amount of f**ks to give for my writing and creative passions, so I had to slow down and decide what I wanted to focus on. While I enjoy writing this blog and getting my thoughts out, it can be challenging because I always end up writing way more than I plan to. (E.g. When I sat down to write this post I set myself a limit of 250 words. I’m now at 467)

So, I chose to focus on my manuscript. While I have been able to self-publish one book already, I wanted to challenge myself to try traditionally publishing the next one. The story has a new concept, inspired by some old favourite books and franchises of mine, so I’m 98% sure it will be able to bring in a good audience. I love writing, and I would love to do this forever. It would be an absolute dream come true to get a publishing deal and continue writing amazing stories for the rest of my life.

I recognised that I couldn’t make this manuscript into it’s best form without dedicated time and focus, so I decided to give it just that. I’m about 75% finished with the next draft, which I’m hoping to send off to agents when it’s complete, and I am so happy with how it’s going. Though it is a little disappointing not to be able to do everything to build this blog and my audience, I recognise that for this book I’m writing to be the best, I need to give it and myself the space to grow.

Thank you to my dedicated readers who do still show up each time I publish a blog post, I’m grateful for every person who has been part of supporting me on this journey. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.