Finding Time

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an entire day to yourself to work on your latest book? Imagine shuffling out of bed and remaining in your comfy pajamas as you pour a steaming cup of coffee into your favorite mug. Sounds good right? It gets even better as you sit down at your computer and begin typing away, uninterrupted (not even a phone call). This is a dream come true. Sadly for most of us, this scenario will never happen. We are all busy, busy, busy.

So how do you find the time to write? I mean, you have to work, cook, clean, actually communicate with family and friends and then, decide whether to write or plop in bed. 

Of course there has to be a way to maximize your time. Here are a few suggestions, although the scenario out the outset of this post seems more desirable.

The first thing you can do is schedule the time to write. This is a literal scheduling, where you sit down and map out your week and try to squeeze some valuable time to work on your craft. Maybe it means getting up early, or staying up late. Can you squeeze time in on lunch? Maybe on the weekend you can steal a few hours? Get creative and think outside the box.

Tune out from TV and movies. You have your own creating to do. No need in staring at the tube when you could be carving out your story or developing your awesome characters. Realize too that you may have to set down the “word games” and phone calls. If you are disciplined and focused you can do it. It’ll take some work and dedication but once you have your book in your hands it’ll be worth it.

It is a hectic world that we’re living in. It can become tough to juggle life as a person and life as an author. Here’s my final tip. It’s a simple one too. Just don’t give up! We want to read what you’re working on. You have a voice and it’s worth sharing.

Until next time….Happy writing!

RL Taylor is an award-winning fiction author with five novels released to date. His newest writing venture is a series of non-fiction books on style, etiquette and self-improvement for men and women who want to help the men in their life. 

Click here for a free copy of The Gentlemen's Code which Esquire.com featured as recommended reading.

http://www.livelikegentlemen.com

Fiction: http://www.rltayloronline.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rltheauthor

Making Those Tough Choices to Boost Your Writing Career

We make choices everyday. And choosing to make tough choices about our writing life can be more painful, influence our health, and tear at our hearts similar to making tough food choices and giving up those snacks we love. Bad food choices, bad health. Bad writing choices can lead to being overwhelmed, discouraged, unproductive, and hopeless as we compare how others are more successful than ourselves. When that happens, it is time for a change.

Bad writing choices may be an over-statment of the word "bad", but sometimes a writer must take a look at the actions being taken to promote a writing career versus the busy activities that maybe associated with a writing career, and I am at just that place.... I need more actions to move my writing forward and less activities that take up my time but don't advance my personal goals. Where do you stand with actions vs. activities?

It is important to analyze where you want the rest of the year to end up as far as those writing goals that were set in January. For me, I had to bow out of a writing group that I love ( tears at the heartstrings) but that was not really helping me to write. I have bowed out of two other monthly writing groups as well that required a monthly fee and were full of good advice but did not help me to write more.(It is similar to decreasing the chocolate and adding the fruit for a more healthy diet. A kind of discipline that will bring health back to your body and more pages to your next book. ) I need to socialize less, promote the businesses of others a little less, and write my own products more. It is not selfish, it is business. Without more pages of work, I would have nothing to promote.

Don't get me wrong, promoting others and networking is essential to a writing career and to getting your name out there and noticed especially on the sites of other successful authors. And I love promoting great new authors, good books, and established authors releasing new work.  But if networking and promoting others is taking up all the time of a writer and the writer no longer has new products or material to send out to publishers, what good does it do to have your name splashed on those sites? "Author such and such..... oh yea, what does she write?  Oh that's right, she stalks other author sites but doesn't write, has no expertise, and sure doesn't have a platform....." You get the idea.

At the risk of becoming more unknown than I am already, I have taken an action step. Less socializing and more writing. A unique idea? Maybe. A good choice for me? That remains to be seen and will be re-evaluated in September and again in December before I make my 2013 goals. But this much I know. It isn't healthy for me if I am not writing and I am just thinking about writing. It also doesn't pay the bills.

How healthy is your writing life? If it is not in tip top shape with submissions polished and ready or a steady paycheck coming in from previous work  then maybe it is time to make some tough choices to boost the writing career of your dreams.


Terri Forehand writes from her rural home in Indiana. She writes for several online blogs for actual money and continues to work on several projects including picture books for children. Visit her website at http://www.terriforehand.webnode.com for more information. She blogs for  children's writers at http://terri-forehand.blogspot.com