Path Of Least Resistance / Happenings In The Outhouse 26-Sept-2025

When I first started down the self-publishing path, there was a lot of trial and error.  More so than I care to admit, and much of that is between me, myself, and I.

Wait, let's back up.  To the beginning . . .

Yes, that far back.  When I first got an inkling, an inner spark, that I wanted to be a writer.  That urge to see my books on bookshelves, and in bookstores around the world.  Okay, maybe that's going back a bit too far, since that was 2nd grade and I was around seven.  Let's push the clocks ahead to my first few college years at Bemidji State University.  That was when I first started to get serious about being a writer.  I had a goal of writing one page a day.  That's it.  Then it was a bigger goal to finish the darn thing.  And I did.  It was a 1000-page behemoth of a novel in the horror genre (way too long, I know, but what did I know back then?).  Then I studied the market and sent query letters out to literary agents.

Want to know what I did next while I waited for agents to get around to reading my queries?  I started the next novel.  It ended up being another 1000-page behemoth, but the writing and finishing was easier this time around.  Why?  Because I had already done it.

With 38 individual works that I have self-published at this point, I have learned a lot and have set things up to make each story easier than the previous.  Since there is a standard template, that's where I start each new story.  I don't have to reinvent the wheel.  It's already done.  The path of least resistance.

And when it comes time to publish each new work, I already have the files set up and I have a checklist of what needs to be done.  Easy peasy.

As time goes on for the next quarter and beyond, I will slowly be adding things to do.  Easy things that have the path of least resistance.  I love learning new things, but I'm taking it one at a time, not overwhelming.  If it was, I'd probably procrastinate.