Unscheduled Fun- Schedule Some!

May 14th is the official release of Timeshifters, Mark of the Centipede. That’s next week! I have been waking up in the middle of the night running through todo lists and interrupting my own throught interruptions with bulleted lists of layered interruptions. What I mean to say is, I’ve been (happily) busy. Last weekend I was applying promo tattos at the Oklahoma Writers’ conference by Oklahoma City. This weekend I’m flying to the Harrlingen, Texas Book Festival to share some promotional freebies and talk about the Timeshifters trilogy and other writing projects.

Attending a festival is just the thing I needed. Festival=fun. And that is something writers sometimes forget about. In all my lists of layered lists (multi-dimentional arrays if you’re a real geek) I fail to pencil in adequate time for fun. That sort of thing just has to happen by accident, and that’s a shame. In order to write about quality experiences, writers need to participate in all aspects of life. While that’s tough for book worms who savor quiet time, I challenge you to put some fun on your calendar every week. No, it doesn’t count if you call it research and take your notebook. Live the moment. Lose the analytical writer brain for a while. Pretend you’re mostly normal and have FUN!

Yes, I’m fully aware of the irony that I’m promoting fun when I’m obviously on a working/fun trip. But I’ve left some notebook free time to see a part of Texas that is new to me and to kick back without any lists. It’s as much of a challenge for me as it is for any writer. I’ll let you know how I do.