ROW80: A Work-Write Balance

Well I headed back to work this week and once again my writing world was thrown upside down.

Two weeks of holiday, including a whole week away from writing, the web and pretty much all forms of social contact that I have was the best thing for me.

The problem is that last week I spent my evenings writing. The house was quiet, the day was over. My wife and kids were in bed and I had all the time I wanted to get into the groove and write to my heart's content. Now I am back to 5am starts and trying to write a few words before my kids are up. They too seem to find it fun to wake up at 05.15 only to spend the next hour bitching about how sleepy they are.

I have to get back to finding that work write balance.

That being said I have managed to be consistent with both my morning schedule and my lunch half hour the last two days and now have only another 7 pages of work to go through until I can send the third draft back to my editors.

When I first read my editors advice about deleting words I was tentative. I didn't like the idea of destroying what I had written, but now that I am almost at the end of section that was highlighted to me, I realize that it was just what was needed.

The real problem that I have found myself faced with is that age-old demon… doubt. I keep hearing this little voice whispering to me that this is weak that is weak… it's just not good enough. The same old same old that I am sure creeps into the mind of every writer.

I am ignoring the voice as best I can, as I was happy with the novel the first two times a read it, and if I get myself caught up in these thoughts I will never get around to publishing it. Plus there is still plenty of time for me to gather people's thoughts and feelings and make changes should it be necessary.

All in all I am confident that by the time I come to write my next update I will ready to send Highway away and turn my attentions back to planning out the finer points of its follow-up novel.

Now however, it is time for me to get back to the real work. Thank you for reading and I apologize if the post feels a bit disjointed tonight, but it was such a busy day my head is still spinning.