As much as I’d like to assert that my work life, home life and writing are all in a harmonious balance, the truth is that more often then not they clash.

The battle for supremacy may not even be the toe-to-toe trench fighting for my available time or attention. Sometimes it’s an emotional thing. If I’m having a bad day at work it gets really tough to distance myself from that enough to write anything that isn’t tainted by those events. The same holds true for commitments outside of the work day.

I’ve been doing Scouts AND Cubs since September. That dedicates a minimum of two nights per week every week to them. I enjoy doing it but it cuts into all the other things I have to do. Last month was particularly grueling because not only did I have the weekly meetings, I also had two winter camps. That means I lost 14 days to those committments. That’s half of February that I didn’t have the time or juice to spend on other projects.

I’m hoping to get that all back this month.

I’ve heard and said that it’s all about balance. Sometimes you simply can’t help but be out of balance and juggling things is the only option. I’m still juggling a little but the balance is coming back. The realization that I can’t always have all the time I need to get things done is a tiny bit liberating. I just don’t want to let down those people I’ve made commitments to.

Personal Update

I submitted a partal of my fantasy novel and one of my short stories last week. That gives me four things out in the wild right now.

My auction items did well for ‘The Boom Effect’ and you will hear the results of those in ‘Get Published’ and ‘GalaxyBillies’ going forward.

Have you ever gone out to a nice restaurant, looked at the menu and seen the most delectable dish that calls your name? You look at it, decide it’s too much to eat, move on and, invariably, come back to it and, somehow, despite your best intentions to behave and not overeat you order it anyway?

You have? Me too.

That’s actually what my writing and podcasting workload has felt like lately. There’s all these great things to work on, but if I try to do them all I’ll be overextending myself. I’ve got ‘Get Published’, ‘GalaxyBillies’, my YA novel rewrite, my short fiction. They all take time and I want to do them up right.

Then there’s preparing for Balticon, Con-Version, Surrey International Writer’s Conference and any other cons I hear about. They each need something different in the way of preparation.

So, where do I draw the line?

I actually don’t know if I need to draw a line. I just need to be better at time-management and take small bites from each. For example, I know I need to write about 4,000 words for each episode of ‘GalaxyBillies’. I have about eight days to do that so I need to write 500 words per day. That should take me no more than 1 hour.

Then I need to rewrite the YA novel. If I can do 250 words per day with a few extra on the weekend, I should be able to get it finished in good order. Doing that, I can still have time for sleep and family (that’s the theory, anyway).

The alternative is to let some of the projects sit for a while. But which one? I can’t let ‘Get Published’ go and I certainly can’t stop writing and podcasting ‘GalaxyBillies’. The story is getting good and I’ve made commitments to my listeners. Do I dump my short fiction? How about the YA novel rewrite? If I do either of those then I greatly reduce my chances at getting published.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep them all.

Unfortunately, I also have to give up a few (more) things. I’m already down to about an hour of TV per week (OK, maybe two) so there’s not much to go there. I can’t give up the little exercise I’m getting now and Family Time is sacrosanct. I will NOT give that up. They’re the reason I work in the first place.

That leaves… sleep? I don’t know if I can give even an hour of that up. That means I’ve got to get much better at time-management. Got to, got to , got to.

It’s going to be tough because I’m not a schedule kind of guy. I plan what I’m doing and keep it pretty high-level, but I never regiment myself to the point where I have things down to the hour when it will happen. Unfortunately, I think that’s what I need to do.

<right hand raised, left hand over heart> I promise to be more regimented in my writing/podcasting habits and get all my projects under control and finished. Oh yeah, and no new projects until a few of these are finished first.

Maybe one more small, bite? Nope, not even one.

Personal Update

Nothing new to report. Still writing, still podcasting. I haven’t heard anything new on my last contest entry. I am waiting to see how my auction items on The Boom Effect do. That will mean a bit more work for me, but, if the time management thing works out, won’t be too big a problem.