There is a song written by a kiwi band (Crowded House) called Four Seasons In One Day. It is so appropriate, especially for Aucklanders who seem to face varied weather on a constant basis. I guess that’s the price you pay for being a skinny country surrounded by water.
Anyway – I thought I would use the song title to lead into my discussion.
To me, writing works in seasons. You have your writing season, your publishing season, your marketing season and your social season. (There are probably more but I’m just going to stick with four for this analogy.) My favorite seasons by far are the writing and publishing ones. I love getting lost in a book. I wish I had more hours in the day to bury myself in my imagination and wander the worlds with my characters. I also love seeing the book come to life, finalizing the cover and, as much as I dislike blurb writing and formatting, it is cool see the book online or in paperback.
Unfortunately the writing and publishing seasons are completely pointless without the marketing and social seasons. We need to be able to market our books and we need to build relationships in the social media in order to do this. We need to grab opportunities that come our way, which means we have to be a little spontaneous in the way we work.
My biggest problem is fitting it all in. I wish I could have a writing season, then a publishing season, then a marketing season and finally a social season, but it doesn’t work that way. As writers we need to be able to juggle four seasons in one day. I find it really challenging.
I have some strategies in place, but I’m sure there is room for improvement. I would love to hear other people’s ideas too.
Here’s what I do:
– I write lists. Everyday I have a prioritized list of things I need to do and I will do everything in my power to complete it before going to bed at night.
– I get up an hour before everybody else in the morning to work on my social media stuff. I check Facebook, advertise for fellow authors, tweet for them and answer any overnight e-mails that have landed in my inbox.
– During my one writing session of the day, I spend the first thirty minutes catching up on any other social media and marketing stuff I didn’t get through in the morning. I try really hard to deal with e-mails as they appear otherwise they get buried under a stream of new ones. Once that’s done I get on with my writing/editing session. Sometimes I am working on two projects at a time, but I try to keep it down to one if I can, only because my brain starts complaining about being pushed too hard.
– In the evenings I only do a small amount of work. I need to have some time off otherwise my brain throws a really big hissy fit. I will often format blog posts while I sit on the couch with my hubby or do some formatting work, anything that doesn’t require my 100% concentration.
– At night before I sleep I will always read and I try to choose books written by authors I know so that I can support them and spread the word about how great they are.
– Along with that, I always ask for at least one or two uninterrupted writing sessions in the month. My husband will take the boys out for a morning or afternoon stretch, giving me complete silence to work on my writing.
Although I am doing these things, I still struggle to keep my head above water. I belong to Facebook groups that I’d like to spend more time on. I’ve signed up for different sites that I’ve never really done anything with. I have learned pretty fast how easy it is to spread myself too thin. I am trying to pull back and narrow my focus. I think it’s better to do a few things really well then a bunch of things badly.
Maybe when my youngest son starts school things will ease up for me. You know, more hours in the day and all that. Who knows. In the meantime, I will continue to write my lists and fit my four seasons into one day. I feel confident my hard work will pay off. Sometimes it’s just a matter of ticking off one thing after the other and doing the best I can.
How do you fit everything in?
I admire your organization. Kudos. I’m not nearly so dedicated.
You rock, Melissa! When my kids were small, I never had time to write — unless I totally skipped sleeping. 😉
Yeah – sleep is overrated though, right 🙂 Haha! I do get very tired some days, but I’m having so much fun, it’s easy to rise above it 🙂
Well done with your planning and outline. We’re all in the same boat, juggling time and wondering when we’ll master it all, if ever!
Yes, I’m not sure I ever will, but I’ll give it the best go I can 🙂
Great post Melissa. I did a double take when you mentioned Crowded House and a triple take when I discovered you’re a Kiwi living in China! I don’t know how you manage to fit so much into a day but I’m seriously impressed!
Thanks so much 🙂 Yes, my days are busy, but full of fun, so it’s all good 🙂
Thanks so much, Yvonne 🙂