A Tell of Caution

It’s easy enough to do. But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it. Especially when you are trying to establish yourself as an up-and-coming author.

I’m sure most working mothers know what I’m talking about: Spreading yourself too thin. Most working mothers are still expected to do (most, if not all of) the housework, get the groceries, do the cooking, take care of the kids, AND do their job. Even without adding any hobbies to help them stay sane, they are spread mighty thin. It gets to the point where you have to get sick, just to get some time to yourself.

Been there, done that.

When I took early retirement, I wanted my next ‘career’ to be ‘author’. I had been working at it for years. I had numerous short stories already written and polished, but none had found a home yet. I had a novel ready for submission, one in the polishing stage, and another drafted, besides several started, and many more ‘stewing’ in the back of my mind.

But suddenly finding yourself without a job to go to can leave you floundering. Without thinking about it, I dithered through my days watching tv, surfing the net, half-heartedly doing aspects of house cleaning I had never bothered to do before. (BTW, I hate housekeeping. It never gets done!) I signed up for six or a dozen newsletters on writing, and more on ‘promoting your book’. Anything to keep from actually writing, it seemed.

I even hired myself out as a free-lance editor. I told myself I needed to do that; I no longer belonged to a writing critique group, and editing would give me a chance to recognize ‘problems’ and try to solve them. Yeah, I can find other people’s problem areas, but I’m not sure I’m any better at finding my own.

I started new hobbies, took classes on leatherworking, theatrical makeup and making prosthetics, photoshop and illustrator… you get the idea. I volunteered for a position with Broad Universe (broaduniverse.org). And because I was frustrated with my pace in the writing world, I started my own publishing company. Why not? It seems like everybody else is doing it.

Somewhere in there, when I wasn’t paying attention, I got thin. Not physically, although I have lost a few pounds. But in terms of energy, I have none. In terms of organization, that’s pretty sketchy. I start each day with breakfast, doing my Broad Universe chore, and checking through my (main) email account. After that…

I have a loooong list of Things To Do. And unfortunately, ‘writing’ is not very high on that list.

How can I be an author if I don’t write? Why are all these other things coming before ‘writing’? I’m juggling a multitude of activities, but what I really want isn’t even in the mix.

I think it’s time to snap back and not be so thin.

Let Me Check My Schedule

Do you have a schedule? I think most people have a schedule they more or less follow. I had one for the greater part of my working life. It got tweaked if I changed jobs or got a promotion, but it mostly looked something like:

Get up at a certain time in order to arrive at work on time

Have a lunch break

Go home and prepare/eat supper

Spend the evening on family activities, housework, hobbies and/or writing

Go to bed in order to get up in the morning.

Weekends - or whatever days off I had - did not follow this schedule, and often felt scattered, unfocused or even wasted. That did not mean I was ready to give up my time off, of course.

Now that I’m ‘retired’ from my day job, I am looking for the perfect schedule to follow. In the meantime, I have a rough schedule for when I’m at home: get up, breakfast & pills, write, lunch, housework, business, prepare & eat supper/take pills, tv & hobbies, take my last pill, extra time on the computer, go to bed.

Okay, it’s not that different from when I was working, but this schedule includes those pills, which are far more than a multi-vitamin, these days. It works most days, unless I can’t wake up, every joint aches and my brain doesn’t work. Weekends take more effort to remember those pills, because we usually have errands to run, extra chores, or go out for a movie.

Then we have vacations, when I might be away from home as much as a month, and mini-vacations where we go to a convention. Somehow, it becomes a major undertaking to remember those pills, see that I eat somewhat regularly and get some ‘me’ time to keep the stress level down. The less I can follow a schedule, the worse things get. I start sleeping more. I have trouble waking. I forget my pills or to watch my blood sugar.

And then I have a hard time recovering once I get home. It might take me several days to get myself organized and ‘on schedule’ again. Con-i-tis.

People are creatures of habit. I certainly am. Doesn’t mean I want to give up conventions or vacations.

What happens when you ‘fall off’ your schedule?

Learning New Tricks

There is a drawback to waiting for retirement before starting a new career as an author. These days, you are expected to do your own marketing. And, in this Age of the Internet, a lot of that marketing is in cyberspace. I’ve read enough marketing articles to figure that out.

In my first career, I worked my way up to secretary, which meant I knew grammar and punctuation, and when to ask for clarification when doing an assignment. On a computer, I knew Office Word and Office Excel, and was actively discouraged from using the internet at work. Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

I thought I was. Catching up. I started - years ago - with MySpace. Does anybody use that anymore? No, I don’t, either.

Eventually, I got on Facebook with a personal page. Now those articles tell me I need a fan page. They are full of reasons for having a fan page, but they don’t explain HOW to set up a fan page. And I still don’t know how to post pictures to my personal page. Guess I’ll have to take an afternoon see if I can figure it out.

Twitter is another big ‘must be on’ to do marketing. MoonPhaze has an account, but the thought of only having 140 characters sends me into a tizzy fit. Remember when I set out to write a 6,000 word short, and ended up with 15,000 words? Yeah, I tend to run off at the keyboard, as I’ve said many times. I don’t suppose half-sentences will do the trick, huh?

And Pinterest. I have some ideas for that, actually, but I’m not an artist. And I don’t want to surf the net for hours, looking for one perfect picture. Chances are, I won’t find it. And if I do, how does the licensing for that picture work when you just want to pin it?

And always, those articles encourage using photos and inforgraphtics. Right.

I got Photoshop installed on my desktop today. I took a couple Continuing Education classes for it, but the program was on the old computer, and I haven’t been able to play with it recently. I have done basic drawings in Paint. I know how to fill an area with a color in Paint. It’s nowhere near the same in Photoshop.

The more I learn about Marketing, the more questions I have, the more things get put on my To-Do list. And most of the things getting put on my list involve a long learning curve. We’ll see if this old dog can learn any new tricks.