Today I’m going to talk a little about my processes and current WIP’s. I am a horrible procrastinator. And everything else always seems more important. I won’t lie, my work/life balance sucks! It’s like I can have a fairly clean house, workout regularly, and meals on the table OR I can write and do only one of the above. I’ve tried leaving the housework for the weekends but it’s just too overwhelming. I am one person and I’ve accepted I cannot do it all! I have yet to figure out how to manage everything, though.

Right now my process is to write in 15 minute increments during breaks at work during the day. When I get home in the evening (after a 1.5 – 2 hour drive), I don’t get much in the way of writing done. I know this needs to change and I am working on it.

For 2016, I’ve set a few goals for myself. Mostly keeping to them, just not as on-time as I should be. I have a kid graduating high school in May then heading off to college (first she has to pick one she’s been accepted to!) and we’ve been very busy with that. I did enter four contests, that was a goal I set. I’m going to enter a fifth, the Georgia Romance Writers Unpublished Maggie’s. That entry is due in by 4/30. I’m making revisions now based on suggestions from the other contests.

Let me lay out my goals for first half 2016:
-Enter four contests first quarter that sounded very promising (CHECK)
-Finish the revised draft for current WIP novel (let’s call it HB) by end of March (NOPE)
-Write first few chapters of a sci fi short to serialize on blog by end of April (Chapter 1 is complete)
-Take online workshop about becoming a book factory on Savvy Authors, 4/4 – 4/29 (IN PROGRESS)
-Enter unpublished Maggie’s by 4/30 (IN PROGRESS)
-Flesh out a couple of more stories in the sci fi series by end of June, look at getting those published to Amazon (NOT EVEN STARTED)

So OK. Sort of on track. But we all know sort of isn’t good enough in this business. In any business, really. I know I need to make those changes. I’m getting some good info and suggestions in the book factory workshop. I’m trying to implement them but change is HARD, y’all!

An episode of the Rocking Self Publishing podcast a few of weeks ago featured an author by the name of Libbie Hawker. She published a book on her outlining process called Take Off Your Pants! geared toward us pantsers. I downloaded it and decided to give it a try. It seems simple enough to follow, but it won’t be easy. You have to think about your characters, think about your theme and fill in the blanks. The idea is you get this comprehensive outline and all you have to do is add the words. I got about a third of the outline done. I’d like to have that finished by the weekend so I can finally put HB to bed, hopefully by the end of May. I’m also going to use it to work on my sci fi adventure series with romantic elements. I think it would be fun to write several of these stories and dip my feet into the pool of self publishing. I would also still like to explore traditional publishing, I’m not opposed to it or anything like a few people I know. But first I have to make WIP’s finished products.
Another book I downloaded recently was Kevin Tumlinson’s 30-Day Author. It’s his process for completing a book in 30 days. Not just a rough draft, a whole book. The basis of his book is writers have to write. EVERY DAY. He also recommends daily blogging to help get one into that daily writing habit. I’m trying to take that seriously. It doesn’t take long to put together a thoughtful blog post. I don’t expect anyone to read them for a while because the blog is so new and no one knows who I am, but I also don’t want it to just sit there blank. That’s a waste of money and effort.

And because I don’t have enough going on (HA!) I signed up for a group doing The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s supposed to help artists (including writers) unblock their creativity by identifying and resolving what’s blocking us. There are exercises and activities and all kinds of homework-y stuff. So we’ll see how long I stick this out. Which reminds me, I should probably stop typing all of this now and go read Chapter 1 and do my homework. I have actually been doing the Morning Pages! The author wants us to journal daily, preferably first thing in the morning before our brains are fully awake. I can only do that on weekends, the rest of the time it’s Lunchtime Pages or Before Bed pages. Hey, I do my best!

If anyone does read this, leave a comment about how you manage your busy life schedule, the writing blahs, and what kind of process you use to finish the damn book!