Takin' it easy...!

I have to admit, I worked myself into the ground last year. (FYI, I think in 'college' years because I'm in education... so my year stops at the beginning of July and starts again at the beginning of September!)

I wrote a lot on a deadline (wanting to publish part 3 in the Island series in June because of a large promo I did with BookBub) and wanting to translate The Space in Between before the end of July (because I went on vacation to the Philippines in August) almost took me to the brink of burn-out. Having a 4-day job AND spending the other 3 days writing books is not a good idea (hey, where did my weekend go?!).

So I've decided to take things easy for a while. I am now only working 3 days a week in education, so that's a big improvement, plus I'm writing without any deadlines. I am writing for FUN again. :) I know it would be wise from a marketing point of view to publish something new in November before the X-mas season, but I am not going to beat myself up over it if I don't. Tomorrow, my new English book The Space in Between will go on sale, last week the Dutch version of The Boy From The Woods was published, and that should satisfy my fans for the next few months. I have so many ideas I still want to put on paper that I will most likely 'buffer up' and get a pile of books done before publishing anything new, so I can just use my surplus of written work to publish something new with regular intervals.

Three days of teaching, three afternoons of writing and one day off is what my life will look like from now on. It makes me happy, it pays the bills, and it keeps me more balanced. I am sorry if I am making you wait a little bit longer, readers, but there's only one Jen Minkman and I have to make sure she doesn't crash and burn. ;)