The Balancing Act

In the past year, I have gone through so many life changes — good life changes— that sometimes learning to balance a new career, my writing and enjoying actual time off is a real balancing act.

I have never had more than a week off at a time. This year, I have the whole month of May off, and pretty much June and July off except for teaching one night a week. This leaves me with a lot of free time. I spent the first two weeks of my time off visiting New Hampshire and my 8-month-old grandson. Those two weeks flew by. As I return home to Tennessee, I find myself wandering around my house aimlessly, starting a few projects only to be distracted by something else. I am usually a well organized person with my time, but I have always had little free time so it was required to keep my time well managed.

There are plenty of projects to keep me busy, but staying focused in the problem. I need to unpack my office (home office), and yes, I have been living in Tennessee for about three and half years nows and it still isn’t unpacked. That should be high on the proriority list. I also have 2 books that need finishing — Book #2 in The Rules Series, Making the Rules, and LIzzie, Book #1 in The Copycat Chronicles. Both books are half done and need to be finished. And then there is preparing for my mythology class that I’m teaching this summer, as well as looking into developing a mythology class for eCampus.

So how does one balance their life when they find more free time on their hands then they are used to? My middle daughter suggested leaving my house and working at a coffee shop or my school office so I’m not distracted as much. That is a good idea and one I am going to be trying next week. In the meantime, a little extra sunshine can’t hurt to help start my summer tan.

Behind the Screen

There have been many changes in my life over the past few years. As most of you know, I had taken a three-year hiatus from writing. Between selling my home in New Hampshire and moving to Tennessee, starting a new job and grad school, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Last November I released a new book for the first time in three years. It felt great to be back to writing. So, with my coming back into the writing world, my website has been given a new look and I’m going to be doing more blogging and getting out a regular newsletter.

You will get a glimpse into the life changes that have brought me to where I am today and all the wonderful changes that have gone on in the past year or two. Stay tune for the first installment of my journey back to writing.

Writing Schedules

How important is it for a writer to have a schedule?  In my opinion, extremely.  If you plan to make writing your career and want to write full time, you need to treat it as a full time job.  You need to work set hours and put in the effort and time into what you plan for your career.  I don't know how many times I heard my grandmother say "You get what you put into it".  How true that is especially with writing.

If you follow my blog, you will know that I have a very set career path of writing full time within the next year or so.  In that vein, I need to set my writing work hours and treat my writing as if it was a job that I had to answer to someone else for.  I set how much time I spend a day writing, and although I love the flexibility of changing the hours if I need to day to day depending on what is going on in my life, I have to remain rigid in the fact that I need to have at least three to four hours set aside each day for writing.

As I progress further into my writing career, I need to also set time for marketing and updating social media.  And let's face it -- social media is a necessary evil for writers.  It helps us connect with our readers, other writers and gives us the opportunity for networking, however it can be a huge time sucker from your day if you get caught up in it.  I have found that I need to allow myself so much time in the day for social media and I use it in small chunks.  Morning with my coffee -- check social media.  After a writing chunk and I need a break -- I allow myself another social media check in and then again in the evening when my day is winding down.

What kind of writing schedule do you have and do you struggle with sticking to it?

Old Cemeteries

What a week it has been!  Last weekend I took a drive to Pennsylvania with a friend.  I had the opportunity while I was down there to peruse an old cemetery.  I just love old cemeteries!  I love looking at the old headstones, seeing names that haven’t been used in years and just letting my imagination go wild with thoughts of what their lives were like.  This cemetery had a lot of headstones from the late 1800s.  While I was there, of course, letting my imagination work, I have come up with another plot for another book, not to mention some really cool character names.

After we return from the weekend trip, I sat down to start planning out my writing schedule for the next few months, or what I thought would be the next few months.  Well, as it turns out I have enough writing projects planned to keep me writing until early 2016!  On top of that, I will be shooting for three releases in 2015. This will mean 2015 is going to be incredibly busy as I not only keep my writing on track, but my son will also graduate from high school, I will be putting my house on the market and planning a move. Deep breath…..I can only think about this in small increments or it is extremely overloading.

But for now, I am racing on deadline to finish A Fine Line, hopefully by the end of October.  I have a special conference I’m going to in October where I will have the chance to meet Cherry Adair and have a one-on-one plot session with her for another book.  More details on all my coming projects in an upcoming newsletter.  If you don’t receive my newsletter and would like to, feel free to check my webpage for the opportunity to sign up for it.