As a manager who has held the same position for many years, I would say that I am good at time management, at my job.
Let me preface this first line by saying that the reason I have been in the same position for so many years is not because I am inept, but because I have risen as far as I can in the company short of trying to buy the place from the owners. So I am pretty much stuck until I can get enough books written and enough of a following of fanatical readers that I can stay home and do this full time with no drastic cut backs to my very meager existence.
Secondly, I am good at time management when it come to my job and what I am required to do at work on a daily basis. To say that I have things down to a tee, and a routine would be an understatement.
As far as Writing goes, I am still learning about time management.
I Love writing my stories and creating novels! But that is such a small part of the job. I need to do much more research to keep my books getting better and better. I have to read other books to keep feeding my brain and entertaining myself so I don't go completely nuts. I need to get better at editing, proofing, and re-writing. I need to improve upon character development, and the many other aspects of this craft. When it's all rolled into one big ball you have a writer!
As I still require a day job to pay the bills, the time I get to alot to these many other tasks is limited to say the least. I have noticed at times, I feel I am much more creative than at others, but at present when creativity strikes the best I can do is make notes so as not to lose the ideas and get back to them when my schedule allows me to write. Recently, I am focusing on finishing the re-write of my second novel, and switching back to editing the corrections my editor sends me as she gets them finished. Then it's back to re-writing and trying to get to the end of the book before I need to send them to my editor.
I am slowly but surely figuring out a schedule that works for me in this limited capacity. I know when it will come that I get to stay home and write full time. It will be when I work out all the kinks in my schedule to work on everything a little bit everyday or devote a day of the week for writing and another for editing and so on. When I get it all figured out, I'll get to stay home and have to work it all out again between getting my boys and wife out of the house, doing daily chores around house, working out every day and creating a new schedule that works.
Just like this blog. Posting to it is fun. Hopefully in time it will build a following around the globe of people who like to check in on me and see what I have been up to lately. See what I am working on, griping about, ranting about, or the history tidbits. It exercises my creativity in an impromptu manner. It's a slight challenge to see what I'll write about next, and then force myself to do it, correct it, and then post it. I love checking the statistics of it and seeing where people from around the world have checked in and which posts they have read. As far as building a following. That part is going slow, but so is the second novel! I'm at Chapter 24 of 25 doing the re-writing, and at Chapter 17 and 18 with my editor. Our target date is still September 11 of this year. Oh, did I mention working on cover art or a book trailer in the list above? No I didn't! Add that to the bloody list!
Posted in: time management writing editing art
1 comments:
Your editor is editing again. Whew! Been a while out of necessity. Thomas over 75% of all authors continue with their day job. I've been doing this for almost 30 years and still have a day job.
Yes, even with my absence, target date is still Sept 11th.
Juggling is always an issue when doing what has to be done when it conflicts with what you want to do. Grab each second you can where you can.
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