How I feel some days lately
Tuesday I decided I had had enough of trying to get all the client and other not-my-writing work done. I was behind in it all and not keeping to schedule anyway. So I played hooky that afternoon
And sat in front of the desktop PC, just daring it to blue screen on me. (It didn’t then) and dived into rewriting my memoir. It had stewed in its file for a few years. It was time to return to it. I did have a deadline of sorts – submit the first 10 pages to the Writer in Residence at the Toronto Reference Library – in January. That’s when the submission time frame opens.
It was on my schedule to get back to the memoir during the two weeks I’m taking off from client work (and all the other madness – book PR, etc.) Instead, there I sat Tuesday afternoon reading some of my memoir’s beginning, did some rewriting, did some deciding what needs changing or deleting, did some deleting. It was wonderful to be able to just write, even though it was rewriting. It was my creative stuff.
I am back to the other stuff in my business – client work, book promo, trying to get writing teaching gigs ,etc.. But I have discovered what the big time stealer is and yes, some is related to clients or wannabee clients.
E-mail. All the frigging email I get. I still want my email programs and accounts to work, but I don’t want to spend so much time on it answering everybody’s queries, doing this and that for everybody (“everybody” is a generic term here). So, I’ve started giving my notice – during those two weeks, December 19 to January 2, I’m going off the work grid. I’ll answer family and friends email, do my blogs, and Facebook and Goodreads.
But work stuff – emails related to that arriving while I’m taking my break – they will sit in the pending folder until after January 2. And after that it will depend on who is emailing – the clients whose work I’m getting back to – any querries for book promo and teaching writing – those will get priority.
But for those two weeks, I will do what I haven’t been doing too much of – read, see family and friends.
And Write!
A writer has to get her priorities straight.
And for those who might be wondering – yes there will be a fourth Beyond book – ideas and plots and characters are running round in my mind. So, some of that will have to get on the computer soon.
Maybe I will wish that my main Beyond character PI Dana Bowman was actually doing some of the writing.
How do you deal with all the other stuff in your life getting in the way of your writing?
Comments, please.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
The real me
Sharon A. Crawford author 