There are times when it is impossible to get things going. Maybe you’re tired, having personal problems, overwhelmed or simply worn out. Me, I’m tired this week. Tired of being sick, that is. It’s times like this that I realize just how much I’ve got going on and how little spare time I have. That extra nap because I’m sick really cuts into the productivity.

A good example of this is last night. I got home around 9:00 PM from a work function. I was struggling to stay awake (earlier in the day, I nodded off in the dentist’s chair). I could have spent 30 minutes writing or editing or proofing one of my projects. Instead, I went to bed.

This morning, I was still exhausted so I drowsed all the way to work (on the bus and train, not while driving) instead of writing. Between last night and this morning, I have lost 2 hours of writing time.

But, before you start to think I’m whining or complaining, I want you to know I’m merely pointing out reality. We cannot always be “on”. We cannot always be producing new content or editing or whatever at a hundred miles an hour every waking moment. There are times when it’s okay to say, “I’m not writing tonight.”

But, I also can’t allow it to go on forever. If I do, I might as well hang up my keyboard and quit this writing thing.

That means I will be writing tonight, tired or not. I may not spend hours and hours doing it, but I WILL do some. I have deadlines which is a good thing. They tell me just how long I can lounge around and recover. But they are looming and I try to never miss a deadline.

So, time to pull up my socks and pick up where I left off. I won’t feel guilty for the time I’ve taken off, but I do have to move forward.

Wish me luck.

I was thinking about my writing and my podcasting the other day and I came to realize how much benefit my writing actually gets from being podcast. It might stem from that advice you hear many professional authors give to “read your work out loud”, but there are definite positive outcomes to doing it:

• You end up with a much cleaner manuscript. That is a direct advantage to podcasting. I know, when I did GalaxyBillies, I would take a scene that I thought was pretty clean, especially the dialogue parts, and find little niggly errors that interupted the flow. I was able to clean up many of those problems during recording. Now that I’m preparing GalaxyBillies for submission, I’m amazed at how little in the way of changes are necessary. The areas where I have to do more are already known to me because I did read and listen to the work. I’m also experiencing the story in a different way (now that I’m reading for comprehension) than when I podcast it. I’m gaining a brand-new appreciation for it.
• You give yourself something additional in terms of motivation. Writing a story, whether it is a short or a novel can be daunting. Getting started on it is great, but how do you keep the writing going? In fact, sometimes the question is, “How do you find the time to fit it into your schedule”? For example, that is a story I’ve wanted to write for quite a while. I call it “Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse”. I’ve written it in a few, shorter forms, but never the novel I wanted. Something else has always taken precedence. Now that I have committed to the Action Pack Podcast (www.actionpackpodcast.com) I have a project where it fits and fits perfectly. I have the motivation to write it because I don’t want to let my co-contributors or listeners down. I will finally have that story written. The same was true of GalaxyBillies. I knew I had another episode coming up so I couldn’t let anything get in the way of the writing.
• You can actually get an audience interested in your work before it is ever done. That is very gratifying and motivating when you see people subscribing to your story AND commenting on it. Feedback is important and it is very nice to know when things are working and when they are not.
• Similar to the previous point, you can get your name out there in another way. As I noticed while revising GalaxyBillies, the experience of reading a story versus listening is different. People who like one method of consuming a story may not use the other. By podcasting, you are tapping into an entirely new audience.
• Content is King. You want people to visit your website and keep coming back. Constant and varied content is important to keep that happening.
• Networking. When you start podcasting you become a part of the Podcasting Tribe. The Podcasting Tribe is an incredibly creative and interesting group that you need to know. Take the time to interact with them and you never know what opportunities may come from it.

I know I’ve probably missed a number of advantages to podcasting your work. Don’t get me wrong, it IS work and takes time. But I have found the rewards much higher than the costs. If you have had benefits I haven’t mentioned or have questions about how to do it, please drop me a line.