My Agenda, Not Yours

By
How many times have you felt so overwhelmed you didn't know where to start?  You have to balance so much as a writer.  Most of us have families to care for, and even if we don't have children, we have other responsibilities, such as possibly a full-time job.  And I mean, honestly, we need to make time away from writing activities too - we need to have a social life, "fun-time".

24 hours

That's number we all start out with each day.  Sounds like a lot of potential, doesn't it?  But then, let's factor in sleep.  Right there, we'll cut out an average of eight hours.  That leaves us with 16 hours. 

Now, many of us have full-time jobs.  Cut another 9 hours (which allows for 8hrs work, and 1 hr commute total).  What now?  That's right (simple math, I can handle this) 7 hrs.

From that 7 hrs, deduct approximately 4 hrs for hygiene, preparing meals, and eating.  We now have 3 hours a day to use during the work week.  Come the weekend, we gain back 12hrs/day Saturday and Sunday (no work and commute.)  This gives us a total of 39hrs a week.  Does it sound like a lot?  Right off the top shave more commuting/travel time if your work is further away.  And think about it, usually weekly, you have to shop for groceries, if you're a parent, you have to care for your child (or children), spend time with them in play and instruction.  We have domestic responsibilities such as housecleaning and laundry, to take care of.  We also need to have some time for recreation, and/or a social life with friends.  Factor in as well, most of us exercise, if not daily, at least a couple times weekly.
*Based on a week day for a full-time working person
Let's just say that 24hrs/day can be really deceiving when we actually might only have a few hours "extra" a week.  Then as writers, we have to write.  We may have a website or blog to maintain.  We may beta read for others.  We have to develop compelling queries, and intriguing synopses.  We need to speed time editing, and refining.

Sometimes, it's hard to balance the demands on our time.  As a writer who cares about other writers, we may feel guilty not responding to personal emails, or requests for beta help right away.  Maybe we have too much going on to beta for others.  We shouldn't feel guilty about it.  We give when we can, but we also have to think about ourselves too.  If we don't spend time on our work, then how are we supposed to ready it for query, land an agent, and get published?

Please know, I'm not saying to turn our back on our fellow writers - far from it!  I'm just saying that sometimes we have to remember ourselves in the craziness of life.  Maybe you're like me, and feel the incessant need to reply to emails, or other correspondence immediately.  What would it hurt for it to "sit" for a while, especially if you're in the middle of something?  After all, we all have priorities, but mine are not yours, and yours are not mine.

I'm going to end this post with some words that I've drawn from over the last couple weeks.  It comes from a good writer friend of mine, Jennifer Schubert*, who gave me permission to quote her.  She had originally shared it on a popular online forum for writers (AbsoluteWrite).
"I cannot control everyone. I can control myself, and I will do what I need to do. I will do my work, and sometimes yours too, but there are only so many hours in a day and I have zero control over how important other people feel this job/issue is. If, at the end of the day, I have done all the things that I need to do, then I need to stop worrying about it.
We're all waiting for someone to take us seriously, aren't we? Our query. Our partial, our full, our training schedule. But everyone has their own timeline. Everyone has a list of things that are important to them, and my priorities are not theirs.
That's okay."
--
*You can see Jennifer Schubert's guest post appearance on Welcome Mat Wednesday here.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 9, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    Great post. I thin the time thing has many of us banging our heads against the wall.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tara TylerApril 9, 2011 at 10:58 AM

    exactomundo.
    make the most of your time and that's all you can do =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sara-Jayne TownsendApril 9, 2011 at 5:13 PM

    Good advice on a perpetual problem for writers: FINDING TIME TO WRITE.

    Thanks!

    Sara

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maria PapadopoulouApril 10, 2011 at 5:51 AM

    I think there is time for everything. If you really want to do some things, you will find the time to do them.It may not be as much as you would like, but there will be some. For us writers, writing should be one of our priorities and not a hobby we can focus on only when everything else is taken care of.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carolyn ArnoldApril 10, 2011 at 9:47 AM

    Welcome to my blog Maria.

    I completely agree with you about the fact that if writing's important, one will find the time. Sometimes, I feel like it may tilt out of balance the other way for me. I use a lot of my free time for writing, and related responsibilities. But, I guess as long as family and friends are not completely abandoned that's ok :)

    And I've always hating to refer to my writing as a hobby, too. Yes, I don't get paid for it, at this point, but it's more important IMO than collecting stamps for example (not that there's anything wrong with that lol).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nigel BlackwellApril 10, 2011 at 9:57 AM

    Yeah, it's a perenial problem. I used to worry about not making word count and so on, but now I just look at everything (blogging, reading about craft, reading other people's work, reading novels etc) as a part of growing as a writer.
    But there still aren't enough hours in the day!
    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. DanaApril 10, 2011 at 8:50 PM

    Great advice -- and just when I needed it! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to make a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

When Family Doesn't Support Your Writing

By
If you can empathize with the title of this post, then you're not alone.  So many writers, myself included, can honestly say they have family members who don't support their writing.  Some may go so far as to tell you they don't even want to hear about what you're working on, what you've done, what your goals are.  That hurts. But think about it this way, in some ways is writing any different that an other life decisions your family may not agree with?  I'm sure, if you're like me, you get very defensive when it comes to your writing.  In fact, I'm not going to deny that it places an iron wedge in the relationships.  After all, if your focus in life is your writing, and they ask so what have you been up to ...what are you supposed to do lie, remain quiet, answer another way even though you're so excited about your current WIP you'd tell a stranger?  Ticking clocks are heard in the background while you decide.
Read more

A Big Decision...

By
Image
For those of you who know me, and follow me on Twitter, you may be aware that I’ve been debating whether to pursue publishing traditionally, or take the plunge and self-publish.  With all the “buzz” on the internet, and after great consideration, I have decided to go ahead and self-publish. I had asked myself, does this mean I’m giving up ?  And, the answer is irrevocably no.  Self-publishing used to carry a type of stigma that somehow labelled the work as adhering to a lower standard, but things have changed.  Authors are taking pride in their work like never before, and just because of the increasing ease to self-publishing, they’re not allowing this to affect the quality. In making my decision, I also considered the fact that just because a book is published traditionally it doesn’t mean that it will meet with success.  Many self-published books have received awards, honourable mentions, and have met with even more-than-modest sales.  In fact, there’s ...
Read more

Write What You Love

By
We've all heard the advice, write what you know.  There's been a lot of debate over this piece of advice.  Some see it as valid direction while others argue that there wouldn't be any books if we just wrote what we know.  For example, how many mystery novels are written by real-life detectives?  And, I guess that advice is null when it comes to fantasy genres, and historical fictional works.  No fairy from Neverland wrote a book, and no one from over a hundred years ago can write a book currently.   But, this doesn't mean that we can get sloppy, in fact more work is involved, and this is why writing what we love supersedes all, in my opinion.  How else would we get motivated, and stay motivated to see a novel through to the end? In fact isn't it love for what we’re writing what pushes us through to the conclusion even when we may find the interest in our book weaning, or through the rough middles?  Isn't it the love for what we're writing that f...
Read more