Getting Down to Business

Pat, Theresa, and Joan have given me a lot to think about.  December was a busy month and now that the holidays and all they involve are over, I can't seem to get in gear.  I know I should.  I keep telling myself I need to at least put forth the effort to start.  But I kind of feel like that picture on the left.  It's after the party and the excitement is gone, and we're left with the empty champagne bottle and the streamers.  I feel like one of those noisemakers that unfurls when blown into, but I quit furling back again and am slowly drooping.

Pat's questions keep going through my mind.  I can answer one. I know my weaknesses.  One of them is staying on track.  I'm truly a Gemini, going from one thing to another, without mastering anything.  Another is lack of confidence.  It isn't new.  I've dealt with it all my life.  For now---if I can make myself stay with it---I'm working on it.  I'm the only one who can.

Value?  Well, yeah, I guess I have value.  I believe everybody does, just as I believe everyone is gifted in some way.  Strengths?  Well, I can be stubborn enough not to give up.  Strangely, I never believed I would be a published author, but I refused to quit writing.  It kept me out of trouble.  It still does. ☺

I love Theresa's list!  I also see myself in many of her points.  However, I can let things go.  It's a major weakness.  She may be a stuff shuffler, but I'm a piler.  It's obviously been passed down in our family, because we all are.  In fact, if our heads were flat, we'd pile things on them, too.

Joan teaches me that we don't give up.  Health issues are one of the worst things that can happen to us and cause us to see ourselves as weak...which is not true.  Joan proves that each day.  I'm in awe.

All of this reminds me that we're eight days into the new year, and I'm dragging my feet.  Why?  Gee, I wish I knew.  It's not that there isn't plenty waiting for me to do.  So I'll make a list, get a calendar, and create a schedule.  There's a whole new year---minus eight days---to get things done.  Wish me luck!

Distractions - The little things that draw my attention

Look up distraction in the dictionary and you get three examples of noun definitions:
1. The act of distracting or the condition of being distracted.
2. Something, especially an amusement, that distracts.
3. Extreme mental or emotional disturbance, obsession; obsession: loved the puppy to distraction.

Yes, I know...what could a picture of a huge wine bottle possibly have to do with my article? Well, nothing. Your point?

Okay I am ruled by distractions and being weak when I come face to face with them.

In relation to my writing, I am a master at creating complicated schedules of What needs to be done, Why it needs to be done (contract), and When it must be done. I color code my Outlook calendar by publisher, my writing business, promotional stuff, release dates, and personal stuff, too. It looks so good, so pretty. And when I get finished updating it all, I am so impressed with myself. I am determined to start working through it all.

BUT along comes a post on one of the groups I follow online about using Kindlegraph for autographing Kindle books…and I have to check it out. Then someone else tells me what great PR they’re getting by doing giveaways on Goodreads. Yep, I’ve got to check into it and set up my own giveaway. Oh, and someone mentioned Wikispaces in the latest RWR magazine and what a useful tool a writer can have there. I barely finished reading the article before I was out there creating my own massive database in Wikispaces.

What happens by getting so easily distracted? I have to shift my pretty colors around on my calendar. Everything that was so nicely spaced out and gave me plenty of time to finish whatever it was is now squished together. I suddenly need 48 hour days instead of 24 hour. (heavy, heavy sigh here)

My daughter and I started a travel writing website for our adventures, which, of course, keeps getting put on the “Do tomorrow” list. Anyway, I love the caption she put on it: We believe a map is merely a suggestion…until something “shiny” catches our attention.

Apparently all of my life is that way, filled with mere suggestions about the “when”s and too easily distracted by “shiny” things. I’m obsessed with loving all of those spur-of-the-moment distractions.

Carving out Time to Write

No matter what the stage of your writing career; no matter in what stage of life you are, finding time to write is difficult. I started writing when my children were three, five, and seven. Finding time meant 10 PM to 3 AM. I thought once they went to high school I’d have more time. Then it was when they left for college. They long ago established their own lives and I still have trouble carving out writing time. Now it’s my mother instead of my children. It’s health problems instead of different sports every night of the week. Life changes every day but the one constant is lack of time. Sometimes it’s like the graphic I’ve used to illustrate this post: Chisel five minute here, chisel fifteen minutes there. So what is a writer to do?

I offer a couple of basics that experience and research have corroborated for me.
1. Set your writing time at the top of the list of things to do. If it’s not important to you, it won’t get done. There will always be the lure of something else that needs done. Writing has to take precedence.

Does that mean you must do it first in your day to make sure it gets done? Not necessarily. You and your experience will answer that one. I suggest you follow your natural body rhythm. An early riser? Get up earlier than usual and write. A night owl? Carve your writing block there. Everyone’s day is different. Only you can know where best to take the time to write.

2. Organize your day so there is time. This is never easy. I seldom followed my written (who has time to write a plan you ask!) schedules exactly. Some days I wondered why I had ever bothered to think I could organize time with three kids in different school, teaching full time, wife, mother, chauffeur, etc. Murphy’s Law (What can go wrong, will) seemed to rule. But I found over the long haul that having a schedule and discipline helped. Sometimes we have to use tough love on ourselves. Email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter are all time gobblers. Set up boundaries for their use even if that means setting a timer. Also limit how many games of solitaire or spider solitaire or Free cell you play or if you play at all until page(s) are written. Tough love indeed when applied to ourselves but it will help carve out more writing time.

Writing success is 90% persistence. BITHOK—Butt in chair; Hands on keyboard. I make time for what is important to me. REALLY important. Family vies for time, the house vies for it, work gulps time, and all of these are important. But writing is a part of you. A part that demands expression and makes you whole.

Here are a few sites with some interesting perspectives on carving out writing time.
http://www.billiewilliams.com/CarvingOutWritingTime.html

http://lesbianauthors.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/carving-out-the-time-by-jove-belle/

http://www.christinaskye.com/writerscorner2.htm
http://thewildrosepress.com/publisher/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=203

Please share with us the “tricks” you use to ferret out writing time in your day. Maybe one of them will help us “carve out” more writing time than we now do!