Indie Life: Space Program

Today’s post is part of Indie Life, a blog hop for independent authors hosted by the Indelibles.  Click here to see a list of participating blogs.

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For my Indie Life post from February of last year, I listed several reasons why being an indie writer is like running the space program.

• Much like NASA scientists, most indie writers have unrealistic concepts about money, making it impossible to write a budget or manage the financial side of the writing business.
• Indie authors set deadlines that sound reasonable, provide plenty of time to check and double check our work, and ensure our story/spaceship is at peak performance, but somehow we always end up behind schedule.  Maybe it’s due to the weather, maybe it’s due to technological snafus, or maybe it’s because we spend too much time “working” on Angry Birds: Space and lose track of the other stuff we’re supposed to be doing.
• Just as getting accurate data about the hydrocarbon content of Martian soil may not sound exciting to the general public, some people may not realize how important one book sale, one new contact, one re-tweet, or one positive review on Amazon can be.  Sure, it’s not the same as landing on the Moon, but every small achievement gets us just a little tiny bit closer to our ultimate goal, and those small achievement are always worth celebrating.
• There will always be someone who thinks this (the space program or the life of an indie writer) is a waste of time and money.  Those people are frustrating, but we have to try to ignore them.  If they don’t understand the value of such bold and ambitious endeavors, they probably never will.

One year later, I can say that I’m happy with the progress of my personal “space program.”  I’m probably better funded than NASA, given how much Congress has slashed NASA’s budget.  I also have the good fortune of having many supportive friends who understand the importance of what I’m doing.  Even the one or two critics in my extended family have decided to keep their mouths shut.

But I still have one ongoing problem: deadlines.  No matter how much time I allot for any given project, it always seems to take twice that long.  This very blog post wasn’t finished until Wednesday afternoon (I’d scheduled it to be complete Tuesday night).  The issue may be that I’m nitpicking small things when I should be moving forward with my writing.

I’m not sure how to overcome this obstacle.  Any suggestions would be welcome, and I’d love to hear how you’re doing with your own personal “space program.”