I have almost worshipful admiration for those writers who continue to hone beautiful prose while managing small children and a home. How do they do it? Probably between midnight and four in the morning. The actual writing takes time but so does the responses to editors, and the communication necessary to sell that writing, and the proposal writing that gets the next contract.  I have Excel files where I try to keep track of the progress and timeline for each project but I get involved in one and neglect the other.

Writing is perhaps a profession where a multiple personality disorder might be an asset. One personality could manage each project. Imagine what that would be like if each personality had a writers’ ego and thought its own project was the most important. A constant battle. It’s bad enough when the writer has only one personality and one ego and vacillates between feeling thrilled at her writing and horrified at how poor it is. What gets done in what time slot is usually dictated by deadlines. Still, every writer needs time to ruminate, and consider plans for what he or she might create. Distraction pulls me off my master plan as does requests from editor, agent and publisher. And then there is Twitter where messages twitter around my desk waiting for attention.  I do often get my organization working well and I check off accomplished writing projects from my “to do” list.. That’s when a friend comes to the house, grabs my fiddle case, strong-arms me and hies me off to the pub. Ah well, I’ll get organized next week.

fiddle

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