WANTED: Female Authors' Tips for Lone Wolf with Issues.

This is my first post for IWSG  http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html ... and I'm feeling nervous and excited for the same reason. As my post title suggests, I'm a Lone Wolf, yet here I am about to take another plunge into very social waters. Not so long ago I could not have imagined myself doing this. Two posts ago I even talked about some hurdles and the benefits of being social, but now I'm about to walk my talk.

And guess what, I believe I'm enjoying myself! Prior to enjoyment, my emotion was fear. Fear of interaction and fear of the time it takes to interact. I just wanted to put my head down and write, publish my book and get on with the next one. I had no time for time wasting. I see things differently now mostly because I was forced to, but also because I realised, thank goodness, that it's good and healthy for my creative processes to be social.

Having said that, what do I want?

I'm wondering how some authors deal with 3 issues, namely

• Health. Chronic Illness which exhausts and slows you down whilst,
• Self-publishing, self-promoting, living alone. Being a Lone Wolf and,
• Money. Income insufficient to support a gnat.

Now many of you will have traveled the hard money and self-publishing road already, but how many of you have a chronic illness as well? Oh and are female? What I'm saying is, that to qualify to answer, you must be

• female, 
• live alone, 
• do everything, 
• have a chronic illness, 
• self-publish, self-promote, AND 
• have less income than expenses. 

How do you/did you deal with these issues together, not singly, but particularly the money one, because this one directly and indirectly affects all the others? I'm interested to know because this is where I find myself now. Now is 8 short ebooks self-published (no income in my pocket so far), the first draft of a memoir complete and many more ideas waiting to be written. Now is where I've faced several writing hurdles and am still here. Now is where I'm about to cross the social threshold of the writing road.

So is being social about "I'll read and edit your book/create a cover if you read and edit my book", and bouncing ideas off one another? Is it about asking for help and not pretending that you're doing fine when you really do have issues?

I don't know yet but am hoping to find out very soon. So yes, I am nervous and excited.

As to that memoir, it's called BROKEN. A Memoir of Breakdown, and here's a snippet. I hope to have it published within a month, all going well.

Until next time

Leonie

from BROKEN - Introduction

"In March of 1998, I had a nervous breakdown.

It officially started on the morning of Thursday 12th at about 8am when I had the first of what-were-to-be many severe, full-blown panic attacks. Of course, I had no idea what was happening and my not knowing caused me to panic even more. From March until December of that year I experienced what it was like to have my life held in limbo. I suffered daily with extreme anxiety and became deeply depressed. I was a complete mess, unable to function normally on a day to day basis.

To say those months were painful, and the road to wholeness afterwards was rough would be an understatement, but life had to carry on. I wasn’t suicidal, didn’t want to die, but there were times then when I felt so bad, so far down, that I didn’t know if I could ever get up again. I didn’t know, while in that state, if I would be able to stop myself from ending it all. What if I was I capable of tricking myself into ending my life?"