Balancing Writing & Work

Is it possible to to borrow Hermione's Time Turner? If someone could please make me one I'd be forever grateful! For those of you who don't know what my day job is, I'm a high school teacher. That means I'm up at 5 AM and if I'm lucky at school by 7 AM, which usually means 7:10 or so. School lasts from 7:30-2:45. I usually make it home (due to lovely construction and after picking up my daughter) at 4. Then it's time to change, figure out dinner (I don't cook), clean up from dinner, bathe kidlet and get her to bed. Where oh where do I fit in writing? Did I forget to mention I'm also taking an online Spanish class and my husband is in law school three nights a week?

One night this week I wrote after my daughter went to bed, from 8-9-ish and then had to stop to get ready for bed. Yeah, I'm old, I need to try and be in bed before 10:30 because 5 AM comes so early. But I've come up with a new plan, because writing one night a week and squeezing in a little time at lunch just isn't cutting it. I'm going to attempt tomorrow, Saturday, to escape to my Harry Potter room for two hours and do some writing. I have to. I really want to get Darkness Rising finished and if I don't really find or make time, it will take forever. Not good.

If that doesn't work, next Saturday I'll make a break for Panera or Caribou, or maybe even my mom's house. It's clear that during the week it will be super difficult to write this year. I'll just have to be more creative with my time. But, it still goes to show it can be done. So don't fret if you have a busy schedule. If you want to write that book, you will find or make that time.  

And the good news is, I'm about 20% in to Darkness Rising. If I can make enough time for a small goal, maybe 5,000 words a week, I may be able to finish the first draft in 8 weeks, sometime in November, and still be on target for my Winter 2012 release. I'll also probably put out The Green around that time or right after and then get to work on the Into the Shadows Trilogy finale, maybe coming sometime later in 2012.

In the meantime, if someone could just get me that Time Turner, I could get everything done just a bit quicker!!!


Comments

  1. You do, indeed, have a hectic schedule. The life of a young, working couple with a small child is busier than any other time in life. The balance you seek can be elusive, but worthwhile.

    Solace comes in the knowledge that, as your daughter gets older, she will need your attention less. Hands-on care of her will become motherly advice when she is a teen and young lady. Someday, she will stop calling as frequently for advice when she is a working motherland busy herself.

    The irony of life is that, then you will have all the time in the world to write exciting stories, even though the exciting tales for us as people are all in our past.

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  2. If you get the Time Turner, would you please share!

    Raising my hand as another worker bee who has to be to work by 7:30 a.m. I've been getting up an hour earlier - at 4:30 a.m. to write, but I wind up checking email and Facebook and Twitter and ... well, not much writing gets done. Lunch hour I do get some words down. After work is not great writing time for me. So weekends it is. And as you can see from the time stamp on this comment, I putz around online too much. ;)

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  3. Hahaha, if I could loosen my hold on the internet, I'd probably get more work done, but yeah I agree, after checking emails/comments/tweets/book sales, I can waste a whole hour on nothing. That's also something else I have to work on. It seemed so much easier to balance last year. But also, I was going to school in the city one night a week and got their early so I'd have like 2 hours to write one night a week completely uninterrupted. And I could never figure out how to use the WiFi there, so no internet distraction! I really miss it for that reason alone! ahahaha

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  4. Sounds like you have the right idea. Like anything else, you have to make the time for it. 1,000 words a day, an hour a day and you can get 1-4 books written each year depending on their size.

    You will pick up an extra half hour when kidlet gets better at taking their own bath/shower and learns to help clean up after dinner.

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  5. wow! That is one heavy schedule. Well, it is now typical to working moms and dads who have other priorities in life not just themselves. Still, like you said if you want to write, you will make time for it. It all takes a matter of time management and setting aside less important things.

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  6. It's tough, isn't it? I work full-time as well. And I'm the breadwinner, so pressure's on. My job involves travel at least once a month. But I just try to make time to write. Usually when everyone's asleep, as I don't want to miss spending time with my three kiddos.

    Tough, but well worth it!

    Maybe you can do a post on some suggestions out there for busy bees and making time to write.

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