I was listening to Mur Lafferty’s “I Should Be Writing” podcast this morning. Specifically episode 171.

I love Mur’s podcast because she is so honest about her own writing  journey and because a lot of things she talks about are things I’m going through too. In this particular episode she talked about two things that really resonated with me.

The first was the sense of entitlement some people seem to have, specifically entitlement about getting published. There were times where I’ve felt that sense of jealousy towards people who “seem” to have hit the jackpot and been published the first time out. Usually what happens is I do additional research and discover that these people have years and YEARS of writing prior to the publication that you never hear about.

I myself will be a debut author in the next year or so.  Chances are someone out there feel the same way toward me. I know I’ve been writing a long time and have written several as yet unpublished books. It will just seem like I hit the jackpot.

Her other comment that really resounded with me concerned working on multiple projects.

She talked about focusing on a single project to make it perfect versus working on multiple things and wondering if the quality is somewhat less. She is one of those people who works on several things at once. I’ve tried both sides and lately have been a multiple projects guy.

Has my work been inferior doing it that way? I’m not sure. I know I’ve wondered that very thing on several occassions. I do know that everything I write can be improved whether it was done in a focused way or as one of several projects. I think that’s natural for every writer.

Good editing and revision can and will improve any story. Some stories are so bad (yes, I’ve written one or two that qualify) that they need to be scrapped/hidden/burned or simply drawered. They can be made better but never good enough to see the light of day.

Both points made me look at my own writing ambitions. I had to be very honest with myself too. Do I really believe I can make it? Will I one day be a professional writer? To both questions I now know I can say “Yes”.  I believe in what I do and I love writing. Those two things will push me past some of my fellow writers who found the road to tough to travel.

Hopefully, I will provide a good example to them so they pick up the pen once again. Thanks Mur for your comments. You have been an inspiration to me and my resolve has been strengthened even further.

Tags: author, entitlement, focus, i should be writing, irreverent muse, isbw, Michell Plested, mur, Mur Lafferty, murverse, projects, writing

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.

Tags: Galaxybillies, Get Published, irreverent muse, Michell Plested, podcast, projects, schedule, work, writing