Radio Silence

November is my least favorite month of the year. The days get shorter, so my mood loses its buoyancy. End-of-semester fatigue drags me down. A few painful anniversaries steal my energy.

In spite of all that, November is usually my most productive writing month. One of my coping mechanisms is to throw myself into work. This isn't always healthy, necessarily, but it does let me get shit done. And I'm in a position now where I really need to get shit done.

I'm a little behind on my writing goals for the year. I wanted to have my contract novella wrapped up by now. I wanted to be through revisions for the first book of project 2016. I wanted to be well on my way to a completed first draft of my next manuscript. I'm not there yet on any of those goals.

Not being where I want to be always gets my imposter syndrome working overtime, telling me that I'm not where I need to be--that I'll never be where I need to be.

It's easy to forget that I was here last year, too: behind on my goals, floundering to finish the fist draft of a project for myself and to get the work done on projects for other people.

I've managed before. I'll be able to manage again.

But it will mean have to rearrange my priorities.

This blog is important to me. It represents my personal commitment to my writing--a promise that I'm going to treat writing as a job, as a commitment rather than just working "when I feel like it." It's also the longest I've ever blogged with any kind of regularity. This weekly commitment is part of how I've kept my writing work habitual.

I'm at a point right now, though, where I need to use the time I spend on this blog doing other things. I love writing these posts, but I'm not gonna get paid if I don't finish my projects.

So, Practice and Procrastination is going to go silent for a while. Not long--hopefully only through the month of November, but possibly until the end of the semester in the middle of December.

I've still got a couple of interviews and guest posts pending. If those come along during my break, I'll get them posted. Otherwise, I've got to be in the writing/editing cave until I get the work done.

If you start to really miss me during the break, you can always find me elsewhere on the internet. My website will still be updated with appearances and announcements (I've got a couple of projects that should be seeing the light of day in the next few months), I'll pop by the Facebook page and Twitter now and then, and you can find some updates (and lots of cat and dog pictures) on my instagram.

Thanks for sticking with me. See you in December.

Multitasking

Fall is a busy time of year for me. My day jobs pick back up (as does my pay, thankfully) and fills my schedule beyond the stereotypical nine-to-five hours. I'm querying my most recent novel--and, depending on the response to this batch of queries, seeking editorial assistance to give it another polish. This also tends to be the time of year when I get first drafts knocked out--NaNoWriMo is approaching faster than I really want to think about, and I hope to use it to get the first draft of my next project (which I expect will be between 75 and 80 thousand words) out by the end of the year. And I've taken on a couple of extra projects this year: a 5,000 work short for my writing group's anthology, and a 15 to 20 thousand word project for a publisher that I can't officially announce yet that's due in December.

For those that are keeping track, that's about 105 thousand words that I'm meant to get out before the end of the year, and about 25 thousand of those words need to be polished finals. And, again, this is aside from the work, both anticipated and not, that will come from my (three) day jobs.

So, yeah, I'm busy.

I don't mind having a lot of work to do. I get restless and anxious when my time is too empty. Having something to focus on keeps my imagination from spinning down paths that end with me imagining worst-case scenarios for literally every interaction I have with anyone and literally every action I take. But this workload is a lot, even for me, and I'm having to multitask more than I'm used to.

I've mentioned before, both on this blog and in guest posts on other blogs, that I'm on the planner side of the planner/pantser spectrum. This tendency extends beyond my writing. I like to know what I'm going to have to do ahead of time. I'm a to-do list person. I might not physically write down the list, but when I get up in the morning, I walk myself through all of the goals I need to accomplish in that day.

Some insight into planning from V.E. Schwab, whose work I enjoy more and more the longer it sits with me.

What complicates all of this is my physical and mental health. I can't predict when a blinding migraine will keep me sidelined or when my mental condition will bottom out and sap my energy, motivation, and self-worth. Sometimes what should be a doable set of tasks become impossible, and sometimes I have to decide if I'm going to be able to do work to further my writing career or if I'm going to give my limited energy to my day job.

So I try to account for this when I set my goals. I give myself ranges: "I need to add 250 to 1,000 words to this project." "I need to outline this arc or this chapter." "If there's time, I need to edit these pages." This gives me a way out when I've overestimated what I can accomplish but also keeps me doing something. It also lets me build in days when I can rest--a couple of days hitting the top range of my goals gets me ahead of where I need to be and gives me the freedom to take a break. And sometimes those breaks are the best thing I can do for my work.

All of this involves a sort of long-range planning. It's not just about knowing what I can do in a day. It's about knowing what the long-term goal is--whether that's completing a work by a deadline or marking an accomplishment off of the list.

The planning is stressful. But I knew that there would be stress--considerable stress--involved with trying to turn writing from a hobby to a career (even if, as it is now, it has to be a second career). And the stress is worth it in the moments when I'm able to track my own progress. I've taken on so much work this year, but the work is opening doors. Or at least windows. It's worth it.

Switching Gears

I did more or less what I predicted I would do last week. I took some time off. I played some games and read some books.

But I also spent a lot of time with Project 2016, going over it just one more time before I put it away (for now).

I'm trying to ease back into a normal schedule by doing some day job work today. This hasn't been fun, exactly, but the transition has been smooth. What's weird is the shift I'm having to manage in my writing work.

I made it through the draft of Project 2016. It's time to let it sit and to work on something different. And it's not like I'm lacking other things to work on: a part from two more books set in the same universe as Project 2016, I've got a short story with an April deadline that's only about halfway done.

I've got a pretty clear plan of what I've got to do. The story has to come next. I've done the outline and some of the work. Also, you know, there's an actual deadline by which a publisher wants it. It's super clear what I need to do.

But I'm having a hard time pulling myself out of the world of Project 2016 to focus on a different world and a different set of characters. It's not that I don't like the story--I was jazzed enough about it to successfully pitch it, and I wrote the first half of it pretty quickly. It's a good story. Or it has the potential to be, at least.

The problem--such as it is; I imagine I'll work my way out of this funk soon enough--might be that I've spent so much time in the Project 2016 universe. It's been more than a year since I started revamping the project. I've taken breaks here and there, but it's been most of what I've written in the past year. And that universe and those characters are going to be at the center of my next two major projects. Project 2016 lives in every crevice of my brain all of the time. Shifting my focus, even for a month, to work on something totally unrelated is daunting.

I can do it. I've done it before. And, to be fair, I need to shake things up--to get away from the big project for a while so that I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

It's always rough to move to something new after so much time devoted to a project. I'm not so good at making the shift, but I'll manage.

Lazy

This week, I plan to be lazy.

Lazy is relative. I'll still be working--both paid labor at the day job and the unpaid (and seemingly unending) labor of polishing the manuscript. But I'm going to take it easier than usual.

Two of the three schools that I work for are on Spring Break this week. I have maybe two hours worth of prep work to do, rather than the usual five or six. There's no writers' group meeting this week. My spouse doesn't have a show this coming weekend. In comparison to my usual schedule, this week is practically a vacation. I plan to make the most of it.

I'm not very good at the whole work-life balance thing. When I'm describing this characteristic of mine in job interviews, I usually call it "being self-motivated." In the middle of the week, when I'm lamenting the fact that I have to teach a six-class course load to live comfortably, I call it "desperation." I don't mind work. I understand that achieving goals requires a combination of sweat and kismet. But it's hard to keep the pace that I have to.

So, I'm trying to actually take some time from working this week. I've set aside two books that I want to read (I'm about a quarter of the way through the first). I'm checking out times for movie showings. I've figured out where I put my copies of the Mass Effect trilogy so that I'm ready to go when the next installment comes out (there's a lady Turian in the trailer--I'm already in love).

I'm probably being too optimistic with my leisure plans. I've met me. I'll likely find some way to spend hours grading or obsessively scrolling through my work email. I know I won't be able to leave the manuscript be this week. And I still have a project due in April that's not quite done.

But I'm going to take a comparative break. I'm going to be lazy.

And it's going to be awesome.

Pencil Me In

I've mentioned before, I think, that my day job is as an adjunct instructor for some local colleges/universities. This past week was the beginning of the new semester, so I've been having to make a lot of adjustments.

First, let me dispel a myth here: though until last Monday, I hadn't taught a class since the beginning of December, I did not have a month off. Between end-of-semester meetings, grades being due, having to prep a course that I've never taught before, and beginning-of-semester meetings--not to mention myriad family obligations--there really wasn't a whole lot in the way of downtime. 

But I did have a much more flexible schedule. When classes are in session, the hours that I have to spend focused on my day job are longer and more rigid. During the semester breaks, as long as I get done what I need to get done, I can arrange and rearrange my schedule however I like. If working in the morning makes more sense on a Monday, but the afternoon works better on Tuesday, I can make those shifts.

This freedom has been great--and has allowed me to continue in my goal of finding time to write just about every day. And it's allowed me to be pretty productive. 

But now that freedom is gone.

I've taken on a heavier teaching load this semester. Adjuncts are paid a flat fee for ever course they teach, so, since my writing, while it's bringing in some money, can't pay my bills, it makes financial sense for me to pick up some extra courses. The catch to this (aside from teaching frequently being exhausting, even when it's going well) is that the flexibility I had with my time is gone. The hours that I'm required to physically be at one or another of the schools where I work have gone up, and the off-hours work--the grading, responding to student emails, bridging between students and the administration--has increased.

It's a difficult shift under the best of circumstances, and this time it's frankly a little overwhelming.

I didn't manage to get a blog post written last week. There was too much else to do: on-boarding paperwork at my newest place of employment, finalizing syllabi, mapping the best routes from one campus to the next, meetings upon meetings upon meetings, last-minute course prep. My work for this blog, even my work on revisions fell by the wayside.

The desire to beat myself up for letting things get away from me is a strong one. I pride myself on being self-motivated and self-disciplined. When I fail to meet a goal that I've set for myself, however realistic or unrealistic that goal is, shame swallows me up. How could I do this? Don't I realize that I'll never make it if I don't keep doing the work? Do I just not care? It can lead to a spiral that, once I'm at the bottom of it, leaves me feeling at best unmotivated and at worst incapable.

I'm trying to take a step back. To remind myself that it's okay to feel overwhelmed now and then. That it's okay to give myself a break--it might even be beneficial in the long run.

What it really boils down to is balance--something that I've never been good at.

A visual representation of my two extremes, courtesy of Hyperbole and a Half

 

It's doable, I know. I'm starting with trying to set more reasonable goals. I'm in a spot where I have several projects going at once. I can't reasonably work on everything every day. So I'll take it in smaller bites. I can fit in a little time to work on one thing--maybe on small aspect of one thing--every day.

 

Today, it's the blog.

 

And if I can keep doing a one-small-thing for a while, maybe I'll start working out a way to do all the big things.

 

Just not all at once.