3 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare for Published Authorhood

Like anything else, being a writer is a journey. You go through stages. Some exciting, some frustrating, some overwhelming. Right now I'm in my about-to-debut phase, which is a combination of so many emotions I can't even describe it. It's the deep breath before the moment I've been waiting for since the day I put words on a page again.

And as I get closer and closer to that day, I feel my world continue to shift beneath my feet. Priorities change. New obligations get put on my plate. Blog tours get planned. Deadlines loom. I have a JOB. It's a vastly different playing field than it was a little over a year ago when I was in my "write when I'm inspired, blog like a maniac, live on twitter" existence.

So if you're on your own journey, hoping to get to the published stage, here are the things I'd pass along...

3 Things You Can Do To Prepare for Published Authorhood

1. Train for writing to be your JOB. 

Enjoy the fact that you can write only when/if you want to right now with no pressure. BUT start training yourself to be a working writer early. Once you have deadlines (which for me means having 4-6 months to write a 90-100k book), you need to know how to make yourself write even if your muse is on a bender in Tahiti.

2. Being the BEST ONLINE FRIEND EVER is not going to be realistic once you're steadily publishing so learn to let go of the guilt.

In the beginning, you comment on everyone's blog who comments on yours. You visit everyone in your blog roll. You retweet all your favorite posts. You blog five days a week and it's amazing. You respond to every comment you get. This is great. It helps you build up a network of support and friendship.

BUT when the wheels start to spin faster in your writing life, something has to give if you want to make sure your time is spent  writing your next book (or like seeing your family and stuff) and often blogging intensity is what falls off first. You can still maintain your own, but it gets harder and harder to visit everyone else. Give yourself permission to not be wracked with guilt when this happens.

3. Find your balance and know your limits.

I'm learning that balance is going to be the make it or break it component for me. I'm an all-in kind of girl. I don't want to do anything half-assed so I throw myself into things completely. But doing that in one area can create imbalance in other parts of your life. All you do is write, so you forget to read. Or all you do is blog and forget to write. Or you keep skipping that trip to the gym because you have more "important" things to do than take care of your health (I fall victim to this one all the time). Or you blog, write, and read but your poor family hasn't really "seen" you in a week. 

So learn how to manage your time and not cut out the things that are important.

This is why you may not have seen me chatting as much on Twitter. It's also why I've invited regular guests to blog here these last few months and why I do a round-up post on Friday. Blogging is important to me, but the level I was doing it at was cutting out time for other things.  

So I'm working towards my own balance. I'm holding myself accountable for writing at least 1k words every week day in order to meet my deadlines. I'm going to yoga classes to give myself quiet-mind time and exercise. I'm shutting my computer off at night so I can spend time with the fam. I'm reading for pleasure at least 3-4 times a week. And even though I still have a lot going on, I feel much happier.

Everyone is going to have their different challenges, but my guess is that these three are pretty universal. I wouldn't trade a minute of it because my dream of having my book published is coming true. But it's important to make sure we don't lose our mind in the process. :)

So what are your biggest challenges right now? Do you think you're prepared to be a writer working on a deadline? For those of you who are published or about to be, have you felt that big shift in priorities? What balls do you drop first?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it!

Balancing It All and Learning to Say No

I think it's pretty safe to say that all of us struggle with the issue of balance from time to time (or in my case, all the time!) For the majority of us, writing isn't our primary job. We have day jobs out in the world or we have kiddos to take care of at home--or both (to those of you who are working full-time, writing, and being mommy or daddy at night--I bow down to you in true Wayne's World I'm-not-worthy style.)

Then on top of those jobs, we have husband and wives we want to spend time with, a house that needs to be cleaned, meals to cook, errands to run. Add in blogging and facebook and twitter and crit groups and beta reading and conferences and networking and running contest/blogfests and reading other people's post. Well, it can get overwhelming.

For the past year, I've tried to manage it all. I've blogged five days a week, wrote and edited two books, beta read for more people than I can count, been an active member of a crit group, and did all my mommy/wife/human being stuff. Well, okay, my house isn't all that clean and my husband has had to turn his socks inside out to wear them a second time on occasion.  But I've done a decent job.

However, now the stakes have been raised a bit. Having an agent has given me a new sense of urgency and purpose with my writing. I have a tentative deadline on when my rewrites would ideally be done so that I can go on submission sooner rather than later. So I'm working against a clock for the first time with my writing--something I'll hopefully being doing a lot of in the future. :) And that means a few other things have to give.

So I'm having to learn the value of saying "no". I'm a Southern girl--I was raised to always be welcoming, friendly, and helpful. If someone asks you for a favor, you do your best to help them out. Which has meant that anytime someone e-mails me and asks me if I can help them out with something, I say yes.

I want to help. I like helping. When one of you nice people emailed me recently asking for a critique, and I had to say no because I just had too much going on, I felt terrible. But saying yes all the time to others means saying "no" to my own writing, family time, or the other the things I need to do. Therefore, I'm going to have strike a balance and learn how to say no sometimes.

I also have decided to adjust my blogging schedule for a while. Anne R. Allen blogged yesterday about this topic and about "slow-blogging". I'm not moving to slow blogging--I love to blog too much--but I am going to cut back to three days a week for a while. So, expect posts from me M-W-F each week while I tackle these revisions.

So, what about you:? How do you find a balance? Do you have trouble saying no? What balls drop first when you're trying to juggle it all?

**Today's Theme Song**

"All the Small Things" - Blink-182

(player in sidebar, take a listen)

Finding Balance

A few weeks ago, when I was amidst my muse-on-fire, 12k-words-in-5-days phase, my husband looked at me and said "I'm kind of jealous of your writing."

*sigh*

It had been a particularly writerly day because I'd had my RWA meeting that morning, which means he was on kiddo duty for a couple of hours, and we were coming off a week where I really had been buried in my laptop.  So of course I felt awful.

My husband works long hours and travels a lot, so I definitely don't want to waste the little time that I have with him with my head in my story.  But at the same time, this also means I get very little child-free time, so it's tempting to sneak in some writing when I have daddy here to help out.

But in the end, I decided to back off on writing in the evening time.  I also am going to get a bit of relief because the kiddo started part-time daycare last week, so I'll get three mornings a week to myself (although, a good bit of that will be spent on housework, bleh.)

So the question I have for you is--how do you find the balance?  Until you're paid for it, most people (even the most supportive family members) will see writing as a hobby.  However, in order to succeed at it, you have to treat it with the dedication you would give to a career.  My husband is my biggest cheerleader, but I guarantee he's happier when I tell him I spent the morning cleaning out a closet than when I announce I wrote 3000 words.

So have any of you found the secret?  How do you focus on your writing without falling into the cave?  How do your loved ones view your writing?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Everything to Everyone" - Everclear

(player in sidebar, take a listen)

An Apology

In the words of Fiona Apple--I've been a bad, bad girl.  And it's about time I start apologizing.  Blogging is important to me.  Every day I try to come up with a post that I think you guys will get something out of.  Sometimes I accomplish that, sometimes not.  But despite what's going on in my life, I usually try to make sure I post five days a week.  So that, I've stuck to.

However, what I have slacked off on is what I like about blogging the most--interacting with all my bloggy friends.  You guys are brilliant and insightful and supportive.  You write blog posts that make me think or laugh or teach me something.  And I used to dedicate a big part of my morning to reading and commenting on all these posts--not out of some reciprocation obligation, but because I enjoyed it.

But over the last few months, I can say, I've gotten to the point where I barely read more than five or so blogs most days.  And usually it's because someone tweeted the post and I can easily click over to it when the title catches my attention.  Even my industry standbys--Nathan Bransford, Janet Reid, Pub Rants--have gone from daily reads to occasional ones.

I also used to respond to every comment left on one of my posts because, seriously, I LOVE getting comments and am so thankful to those of you who take the time to say something.  I still read each and every comment, but there are days I don't get around to responding back in the comments (and yes, I'm still bitter that Blogger doesn't have threaded comments to make this more efficient).

And I wish I had some respectable excuse as to why, but really it's just a combination of things.  One is that the more followers I get (thanks to all of you, btw), the harder it is to make sure I get out to everybody's blogs.  It also means I don't auto-follow back anymore because I don't want to make a promise to someone by following and then never make it back over to their blog.  The other thing is that when I'm in rough drafting mode, I'm consumed with the need to write and between doing the normal life things we all have (being a mom, wife, housekeeper, cook, friend, critique partner, etc.), I only have so much time to dedicate to other things--so doing blog stuff falls to the wayside if I have decide between it and writing.

Now, I know that's not a unique story--each one of you balances similar things each day--but I'm just letting you know why I've become a less active blog buddy.  It is not because I don't heart you.

Crap, did I just say it's not you, it's me?  Well, it's the truth.  :)  I'm going to try to do better, but I doubt I will ever be able to maintain the level of commenting and blog reading I used to until I'm in editing mode again.  So, I hope that you will continue to stop by and comment even though I'm not always the best reciprocator.  And if you have any tips to share on how you balance your blog stuff with your writing, let me know!

So am I only the one feeling this guilt?  How do you balance your blogging/internet stuff with your writing and every day life stuff?  Do you expect blog reciprocation--here's a great article on that btw)?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Criminal" - Fiona Apple

(player in sidebar, take a listen)