A New Outlook and a School Year Plan

IWSG – Time and Writing A Super Hero Story

A New Outlook and a School Year Plan

The summer is almost over, and my big question for myself is did I accomplish anything.

Well …

I published Shadow and Wings on Barnes and Nobles, and Smashwords
I made at least some headway with The Mother’s Chalice
I had a wonderful, relaxing summer with my baby boy, knowing that I had a steady paycheck and a job

It’s taken me a bit of time to realize that that’s not a bad list. And to realize that my writing does not have to stop over the summer.

My thought at the beginning of the summer was that this was my time to do sustained work on a longer piece of writing, get a revision done and get it published. Breastfeeding, and therefore needing to stick close to home and numerous distractions, caused a much bigger roadblock than I imagined. As well, rather than simply focus on getting my story done, I dumped a whole lot more stuff on my plate each day.

So, the summer was not as productive as I had hoped, but my hopes were pretty unrealistic. Of course, I had no trouble drowning myself with realism by reminding myself time and again that I could not do any writing over the school year. Which left me getting more depressed as the summer went on.

Until my husband asked me, “Why not?” To paraphrase, he pointed out that if all I wanted to do was write, I could certainly find 20 minutes a day for that. My doubts flooded in at first. Twenty minutes a day is too short to make decent headway in a novel revision. I would be stopping at awkward places all the time, and getting frustrated. And what about working on the website and my mailing list? What about getting all those short stories published on kdp?

I took a deep breath, realizing I was thinking in circles. I asked myself, at the most basic level, what did I need to be doing to keep fresh with my writing and maintain my website. The answer was two things:

Write everyday
Blog at least once a month

No guaranteed commitment of time, although I knew that between my husband and parents, I could definitely have at least 20 minutes most days a week. Bimonthly blog posts would fit in there easily, or once a month if need be, but enough that visitors to the blog wouldn’t think I had abandoned it.

But what could I do with all that writing, especially since I’d already decided it would have to be just free-writing, no larger projects; I didn’t have the brain space for those. Then an idea hit me that was the definition of killing two birds with one stone. Writing and at least making an effort to get my name out there.

Submit my short stories to online magazines. Something I hadn’t attempted for a long time.

Worst case scenario, I would end up with a whole bunch of rejected short stories that I could still revise, clean up and publish on my site, or through kdp. Best case, I might actually sell something. Either way, I’m getting much needed practice.

I no longer feel defeated as the summer comes to an end. I can still write, still keep up the site, and I can still have fun. Two more weeks of summer left, and I plan to make the most of it, and stop stressing.