Three birthdays in one post
The very day I started writing this post I celebrated a special birthday: my novel “Returning East” turned 3.
While good wines get better and more precious with time, books, especially self-published with no marketing machine behind it, tend to become undiscoverable.
I tried many things to promote the book: I was a guest in several podcasts, wrote constantly on social media, paid advertising on Amazon and Facebook, did online reading, in presence reading, promotions…the results of all these are that I learned to do many things, sometimes had fun but the ROI was meager.
But I can still celebrate that I wrote a book and I am proud of how it came out. I remember the days when I was writing it with some nostalgia. I did not have a plot but I did have a writing goal, 3.000 words each week. I would sit in front of the computer and had no idea where the story would take me. Characters came out of nothing, took form, changed, left. I think this is the beauty of writing, having all options open. Even though sometimes a blank page is scary.
In the next few weeks, I want to share here a few facts and material about my debut novel. Hope you will enjoy it and it will motivate other to keep writing their own book and find their own marketing path!
My German citizenship also turned 3. I went alone to receive the official document, it was during Covid, we were still wearing masks and avoiding people,and there was no ceremonies. I viewed the whole thing as a simple administrative procedure. Instead, the moment I was given the paper, I bursted into uncontrollable tear, very unlike me. I called my husband as soon as I left the building and was still sobbing desperately on the phone!
As I mentioned in a note before, I wanted to have the right to vote in the country where I live. Unfortunately my vote did not help much against the many more who don’t want or are unable to see the long-term consequences of choosing parties whose politics is based on hate.
Birthday number 3, my biological birth! I am turning 52 in a couple of days. It is not a round birthday and there is nothing spectacular going on but I took a day off to have a longer week-end. If weather is fine we will go for a hike, and we will go to my favourite hot springs, as birthday kids have free entrance :D.
Getting old is something very peculiar, I think, and also an experience which cannot really be grasped fully untill you are the one living it. One often heards people turning 40, 50 or more saying that they feel like they were 20. Other people regret not being 20.
I don't regret being 20 but I do miss the options which were wide open to me. Priorities change with the passing of time and it is incredibly more difficult to make drastic choices the way I did in the past, changing country and starting from zero or little more every 3 years.
I don´t feel like 20 anymore, at least physically. And I am very grateful that I grew up and I do not think like a 20-year-old anymore and that I could smooth a few edges in my character, thanks to travelling, learning, living…
On my birthday this year I will start the 3 year in my TCM studies. I am so incredibly proud to have started this journey. In the recent past, since I started qigong, I used to think that in my next life I will become a TCM doctor. Then one day I told myself: why waiting next life?
Looking forward to a new year of my life and add more knowledge but also more fun. And of course looking forward to sharing my writing with you all!
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Happy happy happy birthdays! 🎈