Wow, I haven't done one of these in forever! And you know why? Because I haven't been writing. Fail. I started seriously writing when I was unemployed and living in Washington. Then I moved to Northern Virginia and got a full-time job and guess what? It's REALLY hard to find the time to write between:
A. Work
B. Working Out
C. Cooking/Cleaning/Normal Life Things
D. Blogging
E. Reading
F. Keeping Up W/My Family
G. Spending Time With My Friends
H. Spending Time With My Husband
No wonder Phil won't let me get a puppy. I seriously have zero time. The things is, I love doing all these things and I don't want to give any of them up. (Okay, maybe I don't love working out, but I can't give that up for obvious reasons. And I could probably leave the whole work thing, but...money.)
So I've kind of been floundering around, putting my writing on the back-burner for the last 9 months. 9 months! I know. I'm so mad at myself. All that time lost.
But then I read Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld, which was not a favorite book, but it did something very important. It motivated me to write again. So I've been slowing down on the blog and commenting less (I still read your blog posts, I promise, just don't have as much time to comment!) to give myself a bit more time in the mornings and afternoons to write. So I do a little bit every morning, while I'm eating breakfast and then I do a little more when I get home from work on the days that I don't work out. I'm also trying to get into a weekend schedule, but so far it's not going well.
But this is much better than what's been going on for the last nine months. I'm at a stage now where I'm rewriting/rearranging the beginning of my WIP. I see tweets or read interviews with authors where they talk about reordering scenes in their manuscripts and I always wondered how/why that was. Well now, I get it. Some things just need to happen earlier or later and it's pretty fun to move things around and see the story change, yet still remain the same. I'm hoping to finish this part within the next couple of weeks and then get this bad boy to some beta readers.
Speaking of, if you would be interested in beta reading my WIP, shoot me an email (lockhartbecca(at)gmail(dot)
So that's the update on my writing. Depending on how the beta-reading goes, I plan to start querying by the end of the year. Cross your fingers!
Pssst hi! I started a new job and have kind of dropped off the blogging face of the earth the past week. Totally get the business. Also if you don't care that I'll read slowly, I'd love to beta read for you!! I'm honest so you don't need to worry about that.
ReplyDeleteAnd then maybe if I get around to actually working on my WIP, I'll try to make you beta read mine sometime. :) I'm hoping to do nano this year and maybe that will push me to work hard on it (I have an outline and just the beginning so far. Fail.)
Business = busyness. Business did not come out right. Haha
DeleteHi!!!! Oh, congrats!!! I've fallen off the face of the blogging earth these past few weeks too. I've been so bad at commenting lately. :(
DeleteSo what's the new job??
I would love for you to beta-read for me! I'm nervous/excited already. I've got a bit more work to go and then I'll let you know. I was thinking about doing nano this year, but I really want to finish this WIP, not start a new one so I'm probably not going to do it. Maybe next year tho! I would love to beta read your WIP someday! :D
Hey! :D It's awesome to see a new On My Writing post! I totally get what you mean about struggling to balance the many facets of life. Wishing you all the best with it.
ReplyDeleteI completely envy you when you said that you actually enjoy rearranging and moving things around in the WIP. That's what i've been struggling with and been stuck on for the past week or so. I know what needs to be moved, but making new transitions and all that jazz is abject torture!
Sigh.
Ah, well. It might take time, but i shall prevail. We both will! :D
It's so hard to find the time! But I guess if it's something you want badly enough, you make time, right?
DeleteYeah. It's kind of a mixed feeling for me right now. I'm rearranging and feeling like it's coming together. But I know that from rearranging and deleting that I'm slowly creating plot holes. I'm going to have to go back through the whole thing again and fix a bunch of stuff. Are revisions ever over???
That's so great that you've gotten back to writing! I can't imagine working full-time and finding the time to do that…I'm impressed! And I would be interested in beta reading, although I've never done it before so I don't know how it works, but just let me know! ~Pam
ReplyDeleteIt's hard and I definitely don't write as much as I want to. I'll definitely email you about beta-reading when I get there!
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