Inkshares Community discussion
Writing / Craft
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The Balancing Act
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I the that the best way to get about it is using the pomodoro technique for writing. Write for 25mins and take a break for 5 amd vice versa if you're busy. Take a break from your writing schedule when needed by keeping it flexible and go easy on the self-imposed deadlines.
Make at least one hour of quality time for friends & family.
Sorry if it sounds like common sense stuff, but more often than not, it works for me. Good luck. Oh, and it's possible that at any given time, your schedule will get thrown out of the window for the sake of procrastination.
:)
Personally I can't do it all. I can do writing, or promotion or family, but never all three. For the contest I stopped writing so I could put my energy into promotion (since obviously I can't stop parenting). This means that I have only a small amount transcribed from my script, but I managed to get into the top six in the contest. Not winning by any means, but I achieved that by focusing on promotion completely and leveraging my resources as much as I could. Now that the contest is over, I am going to put promotion aside for the time being and focus on writing so I can complete my draft. Personally I only have so much internal RAM. I tend to focus on one task at a time, so if I am preoccupied with promotion, I can't get myself to write. In the world of non-crowdfunded publishing, I would be relying on promotion services to push my book so I could have the emotional energy to write. With Inkshares being as it is though, it requires preselling your first XX number of books and that takes a lot of time and energy and there isn't a spot for Inkshares yet in outside crowdfunding promotion plans. At least not that I've seen.
I teach, so I have the benefit of summers off, but what most people don't realize about teaching is that summers are a lame second place substitute for not getting paid overtime. We also do teacher stuff in the summer, like conferences, extended education, or training days since we need 120 hours of continuing education credits every four years to keep our license in Illinois. In my first few years of teaching, I was working twelve hour days, and having to put time in on the weekends. Now that I have most of my curriculum set and can be reused from year to year without much change unless I find something cool I want to include, I usually get to see daylight and the man I married that for a few years I confused as my roommate I only saw in passing. Now we are talking about a kid, and I keep thinking, well... there goes my career as an author...The big downside I have now is that I accepted a job at a school in a district I really want to teach in, but live an hour away from, and my husband is tied to the city where we live. So, I'm losing 2 hours a day behind the wheel, and I am always thinking of ways I can fill that time with writing... but without murdering unsuspecting drivers in the opposite lane. Occassionaly, I will put on the voice text function on my phone, and dictate ideas into a note pad that I can clean up later.
Even though almost everyone i know say i really need to learn how to drive, as a writer the walking and bus rides really help for having extra time to either write, edit, or think about my story. I have about 45 minutes of walking time each way and half hour (more if traffic) on the bus. Walking with music blaring in my ears is one of my best inspirations. Kelsey
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No, my life-stealing friend, no! Babies do not ruin writing careers. Babies facilitate writing careers!
I had 250 pages of total crap for this book, started when I was 16 years old, that I completely scrapped (because it was terrible) and I started over three weeks after my first daughter was born. Read the first section of my book and you'll see how it's totally a birth scene. Shoving out that baby was fresh in my mind when I wrote it.
I got really, really fast at one-handed typing, with either hand, because I kept switching the baby back and forth to feed her and I always had one hand free. I wrote so much while I was off of work with her. The second kid made things a little harder, of course, but as long as your spouse is supportive, you can still write.
Now I can pretty much only write over my lunch hour or after the kids go to bed, and it's really hard. It took me basically six years to write this book, but I'm hoping the next book won't take as long. It can be done, though.
Can you take the bus to work? That will give you tons of time to write, if you can swing it.
I have mad respect for you guys juggling kids with writing. I keep the dogs and cats fed, but I have the luxury of allowing my household to fall into UTTER ruin, stop feeding myself actual nutrition, stay up way too late, etc. I'm very fortunate that when I first started I was in a position at work where I could quietly write on the clock, leaving my evenings free for household and self-care type duties. Second book and AMOD I wrote more at the house, mainly because I was on deadline for the latter. I think if I had to be disciplined and schedule out official writing time that I would find it incredibly difficult.
G. Derek wrote: "I have mad respect for you guys juggling kids with writing."I AM always juggling my kid. He's normally pretty OK with it, except for those head/neck trauma times. The real trick will be when he and I can BOTH be taking bites out of the apples I'm also juggling.
Cara wrote: Can you take the bus to work? That will give you tons of time to write, if you can swing it. I live in a rural area in Central Illinois, and the school is 50 miles away from Springfield where I live, so I am forced to drive. As soon as those self-driving cars become available, I'm going to buy one. lol. But, I would love to be able to take the bus! All that time... (drools a little). There is also no writing community to speak of near Springfield, so I have been looking for a good one on the internet for quite some time. I'm glad to finally be on my way to becoming part of one as amazing as this. Writing in a vacuum has been awful.
And, my husband is amazing- I wouldn't have wasted my time on him otherwise, but he works nights, so we're already going to trading time as it is. I know I will find away, and I certainly won't stop writing. I honestly don't think I could even if I tried.
Cara, can we come to a compromise? I promise not to steal your life (sorry about the student loans, but I've still got my own!) if you take me under your wing and let me be your apprentice, aka your "glorious protege"? Deal?
For me, I found that not sleeping frees up a lot of time.And when I do squeeze in a little sleep, I try to dream about my plot points and how to improve them.
I try to squeeze my writing schedule in my daily routine. I go to work in the morning and return, of course exhausted.after cooking meals and helping my sister's with home work, projects or exams. I dedicate my self to write for 2 hours than I'm off to the gym than back again with house chors.
I try not to write at late hours, cause I need to wake up at 5 am in the morning to make sure my sister's get ready for school and I get ready for work. Writing makes me happy.
Liam wrote: "G. Derek wrote: "I have mad respect for you guys juggling kids with writing."I AM always juggling my kid. He's normally pretty OK with it, except for those head/neck trauma times. The real trick ..."
Just strap the chainsaw to the kid. PRO TIP.
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I live in a rural area in Central Illinois, and the school is 50 miles away from Springfie..."
Ok, Bekki, you can be my glorious protege, but you need to promise not to kill me and take my place as master. Deal?
-sighs melodramatically- Fiiiiiiiiiiine. As you wish, master.
Cara wrote: "It took me basically six years to write this book, but I'm hoping the next book won't take as long."That's about how long it took me to write Exile, Magus. Exile, Hunted however just poured out of me in just over 10 months, and it came out more fully formed so it has (so far) taken far less revising than that first book. Hopefully your next book will be at least an easy a birth as that.
The third book's rough draft was only finished about 2 or 3 months ago(too much overtime killing all sense of time) and I haven't really started editing it, but I know its going to require the most revisioning(mainly addition to flesh out aspects that I glazed over in the rush to get done). It took about 2 years to get done just because my head refused to stay in it as much as I wanted to.
As for the balancing act, I have far less on my plate than pretty much everyone else who has commented yet I still can't figure it out. General social anxiety keeps my circle of friends and family pretty small, and goes a long way to ensuring my singleness. My main problem is that I can't say no to side projects when they pop into my head, whether that's other stories or my on again off again work at developing my own pencil and paper rpg as well as a couple of other tabletop games I have in mind.
You people who can have actual normal lives and pursue this (even if stretched to your limits) amaze me so much.
I just thought I'd open the forum to discus balancing trying to write and promote your book with stuff like homelife, marriage, children, or a full time job.
For me it's been quite a climb. Almost right after i started the campaign to sell pre-orders of Beyond the Code I moved to a new position at my job after being in the old department for 8 years. I had to juggle learning a brand new job, I've also just recently gotten married so I also try and set quality time for my husband. Plus there's my social obligations aka DND night every week. It's tough for sure.
So if you have any tricks of the trade you want to share with your fellow authors or you just want to rant to fellow people who will understand, feel free,
Kelsey