Tag Archives: time management

Writing, ever Writing

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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Warning! Rambling Ahead – Kind of a stream of consciousness post.

Sometimes I’m just not sure how other authors do it. They just have book after book coming out, and I’m stuck with just a very small collection. Granted, life hasn’t been exactly kind to me recently in the letting me write department between my dad dying, and now my mom contracting a serious medical condition. It’s left my head nearly constantly in migraine land, and my will to do much at all almost nill.

But I’m not sure watching other self publishing authors come out with books every few months helps me either. How does that work? Did I just decide to get my self publishing-ness out there too soon because I only had two finished works and a notebook of ideas that are either on my ‘to start’ list or on my ‘started but not complete’ list? Or is it just that my pace, especially with life is just slower all together.

I know I should probably stop worrying about others and focus on what’s currently in front of me, which means writing and taking care of my mom. But, well, as nearly everyone knows, the internet is hard to stay off of sometimes, and once you’re online, it’s really easy to pick up bad habits like watching things.

This week I’ll be headed out to a campground, with some sketchy wifi that only works if you’re in the right spot in the camp barn, and nearly no cell service either. (gotta love nature, and just proves that if the cell companies promise you they’ll reach everywhere – they’re lying because this little campground barely gets anyone service provider wise)
Mom and are are trying to get away some, leave work behind, try and relax and breath in nature. The weather is even supposed to be dropping to the 70’s for us so it shouldn’t be too hot or humid.

I’m hoping to try and get some of those works in progress complete, or at least limping closer to completion. Maybe take a stroll through my ideas and either flush some out, or narrow some focus down so that I can work at a productive rate.

Focus has been my hard thing as of late. Too much noise, too much going on, too much emotion that I’m bottling up. Not enough outlet, and not enough energy to ignore the white noise. I have been told by friends, take one day at a time, which is great advice, but I think she was still too broad, and that I need to start working on taking an hour at a time to really try and get things moving. Maybe once I can get moving again, it’ll help my motivation in all things. Because it’s not just my writing that’s suffered, but my performance at work and the state of the house – and the fact that we never cook anymore. I LOVE to cook, and we’ve been doing take out nearly every day for lunch and dinner – and if not ordering fresh just re-heating the left overs.

I want to get back into cooking, get back into those delicious smells not coming from the front door, but from my kitchen. It’ll not only save on the wallet, but it’s healthier over all too. The biggest thing I need to hunt down are some easy recipes. Things that can be prepped and cooked in about 30-45 minutes, because after I get home from work I have little to no energy.

So once I’m hope from camping, that’s going to be one of my priorities – finding recipes that I can cook for us after work.

Have a recipe you think I should try? Leave it in the comments.
(Though note, anything shrimp is a no go because we both hate shrimp)

Long Days, Hard Nights

17 Wednesday Jun 2015

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Sometimes I really don’t know where the time goes. It’s not just a fairly used expression, but reality for me. I really don’t know where my days go sometimes.

For starters, I can’t believe that I haven’t been on this blog in almost a year. But at the same time, I stepped away from my work in progress for almost that long after I finished the final draft, so I guess I kind of can. I guess it’s mostly just the time passing that I don’t always catch. Wednesdays feel like Mondays, and I blink and it’s suddenly Saturday. Or I get to work at 9am, and I feel like I blink from under the pile of work I have to do and suddenly it’s time to go home.

Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m sinking under more and more work and I just don’t really know how to pull myself out of it. Every second of my days seem spoken for, and not one of those seconds goes to something I have a passion for, like my writing. And my reading has fallen into a quick second behind my writing.

I get home from work, and after I finally settle in for the night after dinner it’s nearly time to go to bed. I think I’m going to have a free weekend, and suddenly I have to be at an Aunt’s house for something, or a friend has an emergency that needs to be dealt with, or there’s medium work and house cleansing to do because my mom’s friend’s husband hasn’t moved on and wants to tell her something. There’s just this never ending parade of things to do. And I’m not saying I resent doing things for friends, or family, or spending time with both. That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I just, I guess what I’m saying is that it’s hard. Adulting and having responsibilities and a job that takes up most of the day is hard. I know it’s supposed to be, it wouldn’t be life if it wasn’t. But sometimes I wish that I could find a better handle on managing my time, and being able to fit everything in that I both want and need to without feeling like I’m dropping something on the other end.

Some people would say make a schedule, and stick to it, but well, I’m just not that organized. And I’m not exactly the kind of person that can follow a strict schedule. The minute reading my To-Be-Read pile feels like work, or editing my novel (or working on a few WIPs I have on the back burner) feels like work, I lose a lot of my motivation. My creative switch gets flipped and the lights go dark and I spend more time just staring at the screen, or piece of paper than I do actually reading or writing or working.

Maybe it’s because I really haven’t had a break in over a year, and I know some of that not getting a break is because Mom and I have a LOT of things on our plate. We never really found a balance after dad died, and we’re just kind of moving day to day as we can. And the one ‘vacation’ my mom and I take isn’t really a vacation because it’s a festival that I run and coordinate, and while I do enjoy it it’s not just a vacation – it’s work too.

Here’s hoping that I can work out something. I was able to finish The Red Queen, the first book I’ve really been able to finish in at least two months. I also finished editing chapter 1 of my roughly drafted novel. I’m hoping I can keep up the momentum, continue reading, continue editing, and hopefully get the short story I have in my head out and onto paper. Though the short needs to be a little more planned out before I can really get my teeth into the meat of the story, because it’s a mystery and I want to make sure it isn’t given away too soon into the book.

Reading

22 Thursday May 2014

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My To Be Read list is growing ever longer, and I’m afraid I’m not getting through it nearly as fast as I wished. I haven’t actually finished a book in months, and it makes me wince. Especially since new books are catching my attention all the time.

I think that I am going to try and carve out at least one hour a night, after dinner, to read. No TV. No games. Not even writing, which I’m slowly getting back into. Just me and either the book if it’s one I have in hard back or my Kindle. No distractions.

That way I can get back into reading, finishing books. And possibly fill my blogs pages with some new reviews of the books that I finish. I still have one that I am about two thirds of the way through, that I should by all rights finish. And yet my slight obsession interest with Motorcycle Clubs, thanks to Sons of Anarchy on FX – and the fact that I have biker friends, has me reading a book that is based in that society. It’s a serious step away from the science fiction/fantasy genre that I usually submerse myself in, but I’m liking the change. We’ll see which I finish first.

What is at the top of your reading list, my dear readers?

Gone are the days…

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

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First and foremost?  I want to know where October went. Because hell, it’s way too late for me. I feel like I should have done a LOT more with this month than I did, though honestly that’s because I had wanted to do a lot more than I did.

I never kept up with the drabbles I had wanted to do this month, though I do fully intend to continue with my plan to write for NaNo. I’m just going to have to be more careful about staying on task and not letting the month slip away from me. Because in all honesty, I’d really like to win this year. And about two weeks in I always taper out because of Holidays and family stuff, and finals and school which I no longer have to distract me.

Secondly, I had a small issue with something today while I was browsing the Nano Forums this morning. Someone in one of the regions I’m part of posted that they wanted to talk to “Properly Published“authors, and by that she meant not self-published and not ebook. And I have a more than slight issue with not considering self-publishing or ebooks ‘properly published’.

I know that a good chunk of self-publishers do need better (or any) editors. I’ve run across more than a few that the ideas were solid, but damned if they could just have had someone run through it with the editor’s comb it would have been a hell of a lot better. And I’ve run across more than a few that you sit there wondering where the good reviews on amazon came from because it’s really, really not good. But that isn’t to say that a self-publisher is bad or not properly done.

I guess my issue stems from the use of ‘properly’. I wouldn’t have bristled at the term as much if she had used say… ‘traditionally published’. Because I feel like saying that self-publishing and ebooks aren’t proper is discounting a lot of good work and a lot of good people. Especially since there are a fair few of traditionally published authors that are making their way into ebooks, making shorts available to their fans for a cheaper than paperback/hardback price that might fill in the gaps between some of their books. And I think that’s a wonderfully awesome use of the media, by the way, but does that make the short they’re selling for a couple bucks any less proper than the edition that you can pick up in the store?

My two cents anyway.

Poor Balancing of Time

08 Monday Apr 2013

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So it seems, or really it more than seems, that I’ve been neglecting this poor blog. I’ve never been a great manager of time, and maybe I need to set up in my schedule a better structured outline of when to make sure if I haven’t gotten back to here I should. I always have these passing thoughts through the day of what might make a great entry, and then by the time I still in everything I’m doing enough to actually do something, the idea is gone and I’m left scratching my head. Or worse, I forget everything all together because I never really stop. It’s poor of me as an author to not keep this blog up, at least in my personal opinion of myself.

Though that brings me to the topic I figured I’d write my thoughts on today. Balancing time.

Most people see huge authors like J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyers and think that authors have it easy. And really, what could be easier? A life where you get to explore the bounds and wonders of your imagination for a living. To create characters and make them do what you want to do, or to create worlds based on an idea or how you think a world should be run. And don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly fun. Though the difficulties that can come with that will better serve for a different post.

What I don’t think most realize is that as fun as it is, it doesn’t pay the bills as well as you’d expect. A good chunk of the authors out there have a mundane (or not so mundane pending what they do outside of write) job to help them get through the month as well, or in some cases extremely supportive significant others that work hard to pay the bills while the muses burn fuel. And in a lot of cases it ends up being a hard balancing act.

Outside of being an author, I work a regular 9-5 job which eats up a lot of my energy as well as most of my week. And sadly, a lot of the time after work I tend to crash. And on weekends I have family I live with and near so there’s usually something always going on there, or the occasionally in town friend. Some might think it’d be easy to just hang a little sign on the door that reads “Muses at work – All non-fiction people stay out” but it’s no that simple. Housework and laundry need to get done whether I’ve gotten two hundred words or two thousand words on my new WIP. Meals need to be cooked and eaten, and at some point whether I am ready for it or not, sleep will claim me some time between eleven at night and one in the morning. On top of all that I have other commitments too, as I Coordinate a week long outdoor Spiritual Get-Back-To-Nature Pagan Festival in Aug. (which if anyone has ever run an annual event, they know it’s a year long process), I’m getting a Newsletter up and running for the organization that hosts the Festival (which I will quote an acquaintance of mine, getting articles from people really is like herding cats), and I’m the Vice-President of said organization.

Needless to say, I’ve got a lot on my plate. And while I love it, for as Virgo as I am, I may possibly be one of the most scatter brained Virgos on the planet. Or at least in my state. Because honestly, I know I don’t always get to the things I should.

Work, as you’d expect, comes first. And my responsibilities to the organization I’m part of come in a high tied second with my family and friends. As an author, my writing itself comes third or I’d never have anything coming out in print. Which also means that some of my loves, and some of my other responsibilities get set on the wayside until I can get to them be it because of time or because of energy.

It’s a balancing act though. Because too much time without things I love, like reading or video games, makes me go a little stir crazy for the lack of. And yet too much time without an online presence and I’m not doing the greatest job I can as an author to push myself and my work — in the works as it is as yet.

So I ask you, dear reader, how do you manage to make sure you balance your time well? Any tips for this humble author looking to do better in all aspects of her life?