Divided Attention
The other day, Molly and I were talking about whether it’s possible to work on more than one project at a time, and while I’ve always thought I could and wanted to do this, all evidence points to the contrary.
That said… I do think it’s possible. Do I think I can be writing the first draft of two books at the same time? Probably not. Do I think I can do an involved, detailed revision of two books at one time? Not likely. But what I’m aiming for is more balance in my life/job as an author.
As authors we have (at least) two jobs. The first and most important is to write the books. But we also run our own businesses. We are in charge of everything else, too. Especially until we are making enough money to afford to pay others to run pieces of our business for us. I don’t. And my do-one-thing-at-a-time–intensely, modus operandi includes those things too–at least based on past behavior.
So, for example, I drop everything else to work on a new website (or blog) for a while, and all the other stuff all falls behind, or I don’t do any bookkeeping/record keeping for months (years?) and then it takes weeks to catch up, or I feel so overwhelmed by the idea of gathering up a list of target bloggers to send review copies to, that I never get past the adding-a-few-new-names to my list stage. Back (4 years ago! how is that possible?) when I was writing the Twisted Tales books on a super-short deadline, I set aside EVERYTHING else in my life (cleaning, opening mail, talking to family and friends) and I’m still paying for that decision now. (I just realized it was 4 years ago, because I was missing the Vancouver Olympics… It feels like last week.)
And this all-or-nothing behavior is dumb. It must change. I must not get so overwhelmed by one current BIG GOAL that I forget all the little ones.
But that leads to what I was actually thinking about when I put my fingers to the keyboard this morning… how to pick the next BIG GOAL.
The good news these days is that we have more choices. In the past, few authors ever jumped out of the box their publisher put them in, unless they were told they couldn’t play in that sandbox any longer. I remember when I first started, hearing a few popular authors say things like, “I’d love to write genre X, or my own genre with more Z, but my publisher only wants more of what I’ve been doing.” It was the curse of the success. Back in the early days, when I discussed what to work on next with my more successful friends and acquaintances, they’d ask me, “Can you see yourself writing ten more just like that one?”. It was an important question.
These days, with self-publishing as an option, authors can play in whatever and as many sandboxes as they want. As many as they have time/energy for. But the bad news is that we have so many choices.
If I have any resolution for the new year (beyond the perennial weight-related ones) it’s that I want to focus less on the decision-making and more on the doing.
Do, do, do.
This will be me this year. Getting it all done.
*drops mic*
