If It's Not One Thing, It's Ten Others

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Again. Really, I haven't.

I'll be honest, every time I sign on to the internet at night, I see my blog as the homepage and I think to myself that I really should write another entry. But there are only so many hours in the day, and I have a ton of stuff on my plate right now. The evening is my only free time at the moment, and when that rolls around, I have to choose whether I'm going to write, work on the business I would like to get off the ground one day, or do housework.

Yes, housework. Because I can't seem to get ahead much during the day, when I have a baby that toddles along after me, undoing 98 percent of what I try to clean. There's also bills, the lawn, a garden I'm trying desperately to get planted and failing miserably at because there's always something else that has to be done instead, like running errands or trying to get the roofer guy contacted about fixing our roof, or the carpet guy about replacing the carpet downstairs already, because it's been months that we've been without carpet down there, and I'm tired of feeling like an animal penned up in a small cage by being forced to stay upstairs all day with the kids. (And let's face it, there's a lot more for the little guy to mess up and get into with the number of rooms upstairs, versus one big room to play in downstairs.)

Even when I decide to write in the evening, I have to decide what in the world to work on, because there are starting to be a lot of demands on that front, between the book that I want to get edited already and start sending out to publishers, and the stuff that other people ask me to write, whether it's for a journal or the shared world project, Areceia, that I am working on with other writers.

What's really going on right now, when you get right down to it, is that I am overtired and overworked. Blogging just isn't a priority these days, even though I know it probably should be. But something has to give, right? More than one something, usually. And a lot of times, it's something that I don't want to have to give up or put off, but there it is. What else is to be done?

I used to think that if I were better organized, my life would be so much easier. Sadly, that's just not true. There's only so much that organization will help you, sometimes. Particularly when one has small children around the house that one must look after all day.

Perhaps, though, just perhaps, it will get a little better in the future. My husband and I have been kicking around the idea of him quitting his second job, so that he isn't working seven days a week anymore; if he were home on the weekends, he could help out more and take over some of the crap that's been settled on my shoulders with everything else.

The only problem is that we need the money from his second job right now, and I'm not altogether comfortable with him just quitting it. I don't have my other business anywhere near ready to launch, considering that I almost never get to work on it, with all of the other demands in my life right now. So there will be no cushion from that.

One of his coworkers suggested a solution that might work better for us, for the time being: working only one weekend day each week, and then alternating between it being a Saturday or a Sunday, week to week. Eric will have to speak to his boss about it next weekend. So we will see...

In some actual good news, however, I turned in the first installment of a story for the Areceia project, called Heart of a Warrior. Now I'm going to work on Anemone's Song for a few days while I have a chance. My son has surgery on Tuesday, and I don't know that I will have much of a chance to write for a few days following that.

I just hope it goes well.

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Progress by Heartburn

Yesterday didn't go quite as I planned. I had intended to work on typing up more of Anemone's Song during my daughter's nap, but I went on a sudden cleaning jag instead. (I guess the nesting phase of this pregnancy has started.) I figured I might then do a little more cleaning later that night after she was in bed, and then do some writing.

Oh, the best laid plans...

The upshot of this is that I accomplished nothing in terms of my writing yesterday. I was too tired to clean or write, last night. Just picking up my daughter's toys off the living room floor is a ton of work at this point in the pregnancy. Everything is so awkward, and I spend all day standing up and down doing things for my daughter, plus all of the trips upstairs to our only bathroom, I just don't feel like messing with much at the end of the day. So I end up crawling around the floor on all fours trying to clean up her toys to put them away, and the entire process takes two or three times as long as it should. By the time I'm done, all I want to do is sink into a comfortable chair and hope that I don't have to climb the stupid stairs to use the bathroom any time soon.

On the bright side, though, I managed to type up one short chapter of my book tonight, despite how exhausted I am. That makes me happy.

Of course, it probably has something to do with the fact that my husband brought home Taco Bell for me, and I'm afraid of going to bed too soon for fear of killer heartburn. I have near constant heartburn in the last three months as it is.

Meh. Whatever. I'll take what I can get, you know? I'm one chapter closer to being finished with all the typing, which means I'm closer to the editing phase. Progress is progress, after all, no matter how you accomplish it.

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Seeking a New Approach to Editing

I have now passed the 2/3 mark in typing up my book. I am filled with both anticipation and "dread" about the editing process that is soon to come. Typing it up has been a daunting task in and of itself. Editing promises to be even more so.

I have a love/hate relationship with editing. Perhaps even more so than with writing. Most of the time, I enjoy editing because I like to make my writing flow better and look neater. I like taking the time to test one word against another to see which one truly captures the mood or emotion I want to convey.

Editing is great...in small doses.

Yet editing a big project can be completely different. Even if I only edit a page or a chapter at time, the entire process wears on me after a while. My nerves become tight and frazzled. I long to do anything but sit down and tackle the "headache" in front of me.

There is some wisdom in letting one's work sit for a time, without looking at it, so that you can approach it again with fresh eyes at a later date. With editing, however, this can be a double edged sword for me. Sometimes the break from the editing process makes it all the more hard and daunting to pick it up again. The road to completion feels even longer. The project seems like it will never end.

This time I will try a new approach to my editing process. I will take the time, after I finish typing up the book, to develop an editing method that will hopefully make the task faster and less daunting.

Any ideas I can incorporate are vastly appreciated.

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What Being a Writer Really Means

Life as a writer is anything but the easy, get-rich-and-make-lots-of-money fantasy that so many people think it is. Writing is hard work. You have to write even when you don't feel like it. Writing must be a priority. You must make time for it. And those who like to sit around and talk about writing rarely do much writing at all. Some of them even complain that they have no time to write.

Well, guess what, my friends? Stop talking about writing. Stop complaining about having no time. Make time. Write! (That's an order, you hear me?)

I have noticed that if I do not make time for my writing, I become very nasty to be around. I am moody, tense, snap at the littlest things. Life is not pleasant for my husband, and I am not nearly as patient with my little daughter, if I go too long without writing. This is exactly what has happened to me in the last few days.

Which is why I have been forcing myself to edit and write during my daughter's nap. I don't want to edit. I'm finding it difficult to concentrate, and I feel almost bored with it, which is unusual for me. Normally I am alert and excited about editing, because it means I am almost done with a project. Instead, I feel lackluster, perhaps because I am tired. Or maybe because it looks as if it will be hard to lower my word count for this story right now.

But I am editing anyway. Because I need to. Even if it means losing a little of the little sleep I seem to get as it is. Writing needs to be a priority in my life, and it needs to be a priority in yours, too. So write! And

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Slow-Going...

I feel like I'm plodding along so slowly in my writing that slugs are passing me, slathering me in their slime as they speed away. Hm. Actually, that's probably the most creative sentence I've written in about a week, right there.

I haven't been doing a lot of fresh writing lately. If I do, it's only bits and pieces. Nothing significant. I'm still working on my new short story. I didn't get it done for that deadline, but I figured I wouldn't, all things considered. There's just too much going on in my life right now. I'm trying so hard to get the apartment set up for the baby, but I can't do it all myself and my husband is almost never able to help me. He's always working overtime so we can pay bills and buy groceries, and I barely see him anymore. The little time he is home, we're both sleeping for most of it. So I'm doing most of the housework and preparations myself, but at this point in the pregnancy, there's a lot I just can't do, and it seems he never has time to help me. So nothing gets done that needs to get done, usually. It's frustrating.

On top of all that, I'm not sleeping well anymore. I find I can only sleep for about 2-5 hours anymore, before I wake up and can't get back to sleep for several hours. So the upshot of all that is that I can't even get a lot of housework or preparations for the baby done myself because I'm so tired and I have no help. And trying to write when I'm tired is just about impossible.

Probably the most I've been able to accomplish in relation to writing the last few days is to read some of a book I have on how to write magazine articles, produced by Writer's Digest.

And did I mention we're in financial and other stress again? We're always tight on money as it is, but Tuesday a really bad snowstorm hit our area, and we got dumped on big time. You could hardly see anything while driving, so we ended up canceling our appointment to interview a pediatrician that morning and went home. I tried really hard to convince my husband to stay home and not go in because of the weather, but I couldn't...and not too long after he left, he got in a car accident due to the snowy, icy roads. So, unfortunately (long story short), he didn't get in to work that day. He was okay, but the other lady in the accident was complaining about neck and back pain even though she seemed to be moving and walking around just fine, so my husband is worried she's going to take us to court and sue. And we can't afford to go to court and hire a lawyer, much less be sued. It would put us in debt that we'd never be able to get out of, probably, since we're barely making it right now as it is, and since we're already a little in debt right now anyway. How are we supposed to support ourselves, much less our baby that's almost HERE, for crying out loud, if we have to go to court and get sued? We're barely squeezing by as it is.

Those are the major things going on right now. There are a million other smaller things going on, too. Our family just can't seem to get a break. I'm trying hard not to get depressed or dwell on things and worry--or let my husband do it, either--but it's hard not to. And needless to say, it's hard to do a lot of writing with all of this happening around me and being on my mind. Still, I'm trying. Probably not as hard as I should be, but I just can't seem to get a decent night's sleep to be able to have enough energy to get anything done. I find myself falling asleep for unintended naps when I sit to rest, and waking up hours later. It's frustrating.

Well, at least tonight I read two and half chapters in that book on magazine writing. So I got something accomplished, right? That's more than I've managed in a few days, writing-wise...

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To Write, or Not to Write? There is No Question!

I am really tired today. I don't know why. I got plenty of sleep. Maybe it's because I've been working so hard on my editing the last couple of days (no, I haven't deprived myself of sleep. That would just be stupid. I can't imagine trying to edit anything, much less well or even coherently, without plenty of sleep) and that's taken a toll on me. Or maybe it's just the pregnancy hormones doing a number on me today. Whatever it is, I feel mentally sluggish and physically exhausted. I just want to go back to sleep, and I know that would be very, very bad for me. Even if I told myself it would be a short nap, it wouldn't. I know myself, and it never is. I don't desire to waste a couple hours of my day that could be spent more profitably, so to speak.

So, here I am, blinking at my computer screen as if I've never seen it before in my life--even as I type this. I don't think I'm going to edit today. Not unless I wake up, anyway. But I think maybe I should take a break from it for a day, maybe two. I need to finish the story and turn it in on the 29th, however. I go out of town at the end of the month for my baby shower, and since the deadline is the 31st, I need to make sure my story is edited and polished and turned in before I leave town.

Maybe I'll try to write some poetry today. I'm not sure whether it will be any good or not, but then, I never am. At least I would be writing something and not feeling like I'm wasting the whole day away, writing-wise. The most productive I've been today is research. If you can call it that. I'm reading some articles on how to better promote yourself as a writer, and things of that nature. I'm learning some useful stuff.

Ever since I took some of the Writer's Digest Writing Workshops (www.writersonlineworkshops.com), I've been getting offers in the mail for subscriptions to writing magazines and publications--at a professional writer's discount. The only one I've signed up for is Writer's Digest, and that was early on when we weren't so short on money yet. However, I've recently received another offer that looks interesting. And while it's cheap, I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it right now. Maybe I'll treat myself to something like that after I get something published at a paying publication or in writing contest. Although, who knows when that will be. I'm hoping it's soon, but who knows. If there's anything a writer has to learn to deal with, it's waiting and rejections. And I've had experience doing both for some time now. It's nothing new.

Still, at least I feel like I'm moving forward a bit in my writing career. The writing goals help. It keeps me on track, and I feel like I'm accomplishing a lot more than I used to, in some ways. This blog also helps. Accountability to someone or some thing (both, if you can get it!) helps.

I'm off to write now. I feel a bit more alert after typing this.

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