How to Handle Competing Priorities

Like most women, I have about a dozen "to do's" on my list every day.  Heck, every hour.  Work, family, writing, friends, volunteer work, they all pile up every day and every day I must attack the pile.

Lately, we've heard that multitasking doesn't work, but we still do it, don't we?  Right now, I've got my smartphone beside me as I type this out and I have several windows open on my browser, all touching on different topics and all waiting for my attention.

In my writing life, I have second edits due back to my publisher next week, I have an entire novel I'm trying to write by mid-month, I have a submission I have to send off to my writing group which meets this weekend, and I want to read entries for the So You Think You Can Write contest.  Oh, and this blog post.  Does that sound like enough yet?

I can't do everything at once -- nor do I want to -- so how do I handle it?

Set Time Frames

Most of the writing tasks I have to accomplish will take an extended period of time.  Some have concrete deadlines (like my edits), while others don't.

Make a list -- mentally is okay -- of the tasks and how long you estimate they will take to complete, or, if they have a deadline, when it is due.

The Snowflake Method

The snowflake method is a debt reduction strategy I recently read about where you pay the minimum balances on all of your outstanding debts, but you pay off your smallest debt first by putting all of your available funds into that payment, then when that's paid off, you roll the extra payments into your next smallest debt and so on until you've paid them all off.  The idea is to promote a sense of accomplishment as you see your number of debts be reduced.  Another version has you paying off your highest interest rate debts first.

If any of your tasks can be completed in a short time, say less than fifteen minutes, do it first.  Do it now.  So, I would finish this blog first then I would send off my chapters to my writing group.

Set Mini Deadlines

After I've tackled the tasks that can be completed quickly, I move on to my larger ones.  These are high priority tasks that need to be completed by certain deadlines.

The edits will take a few days and I have about a week on hand.  I set out a block of time in my schedule -- the weekend should be okay -- to complete them.  That's my deadline before the deadline, which gives me time to catch up in case I fall behind.

Writing the novel is another larger task and I know I have to dedicate more time to it, but at this point I'm not sure how much time I will have on hand.  So I set a different kind of goal.  Every day from now until I decide that I need to have my first draft completed, I will write X number of pages a day.

In between all of these other tasks, I will be reading entries to the contest...such as when I need a mental break from writing or editing.

This may not be the best way to balance all of the millions of things that come up every day but it is a guideline and I always feel better with a plan in hand.  Try it and see if it works for you.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Finding Your Inspiration - Start a Writing Group

My family likes to speculate on what goes on at meetings of my writing group. They joke that we sit silently together and write. “Ready…set…write!” is the catchphrase that greets me once a month on a Saturday as I set out across the city to my friend’s house.

Hold on a second…friend? You thought we were talking about a writing group, right? Fellow writers, colleagues, serious professionals (or, in our case, amateurs) in the craft. Where do friends come into it?

Well, three years ago, these three women I meet up with every month were strangers. None of us knew each in the slightest when we first met up at a week-long summer course on creative writing. We were all different, with varied histories, demographics, and careers (one doctor, one editor, and two lawyers – one practicing and one retired) but we were all interested in writing a novel.

The course provided us with the chance to meet, to click and to exchange email addresses. At first, almost half of our small writing class wanted to meet in a group setting. Many even came out to the first meeting at a local restaurant to share our work, but it was largely geography that left us with the four city-based women who first started our group. We were fortunate that it ended up that way. I can honestly say that the ladies I meet with every month are those whose writing first impressed me years ago in our class. And I continue to be impressed with their writing and dedication every month.

I work hard every month to make the deadline to submit my work so that these ladies can read and critique it. We’re not brutal with each other but we do criticize. As we’ve gotten to be friends, we have started to know how good our work is from the lack of reaction. When copious praise is replaced by reticence, we know that it’s back to the editing chopping block.

A member has since come and gone in our little group but the group continues. We all write, urge each other to write, celebrate each others’ successes and commiserate over rejections. Since joining, I have published two short stories but none of us have reached our ultimate goal: publishing a book-length work of fiction.

Still, after every meeting, I leave inspired to do more. To write more. To submit my work for publication. To keep going.

That’s the real benefit of a writing group. Aside from having a community of people with your same interest, it’s great to have a safe setting from which you can draw encouragement and inspiration.

So, come on, reach out and connect with your fellow writers. Take a course. Attend a meeting of the local writer’s guild. Get online to find your group (meeting in public at first until you’re comfortable with a more private venue). Just get out there!

Now, repeat after me. Ready…set…write!

Photo courtesy of graur codrin at freedigitalphotos.net

Portrait of the Writer as a Young Lady – Part 2

I spent the years from ages sixteen to thirty writing for myself. But what had I accomplished in my writing career?

I had gone from burying my scribbled pages in plastic binders to hiding them away behind computer passwords but my audience hadn’t changed; it was still just myself and the occasional close friend.

Two years ago, I bit the bullet and enrolled in a weeklong summer writing course at a local university. For the first time in almost a decade, I put aside my genre fixation and created some ‘serious’ literary works. I submitted one to the ‘come all who can afford the course fee’ program and arrived (late) to my first day of classes. The course was mainly based on reading each other’s work and then providing feedback to one or two or three people each day. By the second day, I was engaged.

My work didn’t come up for review until the fourth day and the first person in my group to provide feedback kept saying she didn’t understand it. After that, however, it was mostly pretty positive stuff…and at the end of the class, my piece was chosen by my class to be read out to the whole writing school—a hundred plus people!

I came out of that course with an amazing writing group who has met regularly ever since, sharing our work, critiques, triumphs and rejections.

I’ve spent the last two years since that writing course piling up rejection letters and often just going by the lack of responses. And, finally, in January of last year, I received an acceptance from UK magazine wanting to publish my short story! Another acceptance and publication came earlier this year as well.

Nearly two decades of writing and two short stories published to day. Not worth it, right? Maybe I should just stick to my day job…

No way!

Fortunately, my family, friends and writing group all accept my need to write and they seem to think I’m pretty good at it. I’ve learned that it is a need. I would write even knowing beforehand that there was no avenue for publication—ever—in my future.

So why keep writing?

Because I am a writer. I have never questioned that fact.

Photo courtesy of Keattikorn at freedigitalphotos.net