Adjusting Mindsets

It's nice and rainy (and even cool!) today, so I'm hoping for a really productive writing day. I'm somewhat inspired by yet another piece of financial good news (my latest royalty statement). Seeing your work paying off is excellent motivation. This business can be so iffy, and it can take a while to see the payoff. The audiobook money is the result of work I did starting more than a decade ago. That's why it takes a lot of perseverance to make it in this business. There may be people who dash off a book, throw it up for sale online and then instantly rake in the bucks, but I'm on track to have my best earnings year ever because the cumulative effect of work I started more than ten years ago has finally built into a decent-sized snowball, and I'm hoping to build on that with new books.

I do seem to be having trouble adjusting my mindset about money, though, after so many years of just getting by. I already know that I'm in "living comfortably" territory for this year, regardless of what else happens, but I still find myself functioning as though I'm living off my savings. Which is how I made it through those years without having to scramble for work or find another job, so I don't want to go crazy now in case there are more lean years ahead, and I have some long-term, big-picture goals that are more important to me than buying lots of stuff now. Like getting a new house that has more of the features I want. But if there's something I need, I can buy it without worrying, and giving myself a few treats won't kill me.

I may let myself take an actual relaxing vacation at some point -- that trip I keep talking about where I'm not going for any particular event that will require being on any kind of schedule, to a place that has some fun things to see and do but that isn't  so packed with stuff that I wear myself out, and that is relaxing and reviving rather than exhausting. I haven't figured out quite what that is yet, though, since travel itself is rather tiring. There's not much within a short drive, but flying can also be tiring and stressful.

And I think I may bite the bullet, renew my expired passport (I'm actually at the point where I need a whole new one) and start thinking of a trip to England in the fall. That counts as work, though, because I'm researching some things.

But before I take time off, I have to finish a book.