Lessons Learned

Writer's Block

I thought I wasn’t going to be very busy in this week between Christmas and New Year’s. Hubby has the week off, so our 4yo has attached herself to him. Our 12yo has special needs, and she’s with her Personal Care Assistant most of the day.

Silly me decided that, since I wasn’t going to be very busy, I could go ahead and schedule a few extra things for these quiet days.

Big mistake.

First of all, the holidays are a busy time. We have two kids, and out-of-town family, and just because Christmas is over doesn’t mean the festivities are done. I have a crispy Christmas tree that really needs to be carefully un-decorated and taken out to the curb. There are several chores that we had put off until hubby had a few days off. And most importantly, I’m going to be teaching in January, and I need to prepare for that.

I’ve been following the advice “The only thing worse (for a pre-pubbed writer) than no blog is an abandoned blog.” I have my regular interviews on Fridays, and the SciFi Question of the Day every Tuesday. Some weeks I have several additional blog posts, sometimes I only have those two regular features.

I had promised too many people “You’ll have it right after Christmas!” and I ended up having to apologize several times over. I still don’t have the questions finished for this week’s interview, and I usually give those to my subject on Sunday. I did the SciFi Question of the Day late on Tuesday instead of having it ready to go at midnight. (That’s an easy post… copy, paste, edit & format, but it takes a little bit of time and attention.) I had to turn in my proofreading only half finished, something I have never done. I have paperwork to complete for my teaching gig, not to mention my own preparations.

Another big mistake: playing a game. Granted, at the moment, I’m involved in a Castle Age Guild Battle and a Ghost Trappers Raid. But both of those are the kind of games I log on to every few minutes, give a few appropriate clicks, then go back to whatever else I was doing. I’m OCD. I know this. I am careful about this, and I know what I can/can’t handle. For example, when I started on facebook several years ago, I purposely only played a couple of games. I paced myself, and made sure I wasn’t obsessing on the games. But a few weeks ago a friend asked me to play Bubble Island on Google Plus. I’m not playing many games at the moment, so I said yes and dove in. But it isn’t a passive game where I check it several times through the day and give a click or two; it’s more of a puzzle/arcade game where as soon as I beat one level, there is another level ready to go. I’ve spent way too much time on this game over the past few weeks. Last night, I finally beat the last level.

Huge time-suck.

Another lesson learned: If I don’t write every day, it becomes very easy to skip writing the next day, and the next. Soon, a week goes by and I’ve written fewer than 1,000 words. One thing I’m looking forward to about teaching next semester is that it justifies the cost of daycare. Hopefully having my 4yo in daycare will mean I can have time not just for my teaching job, but for writing and, more importantly, revising.

So there’s a gratuitous blog post. Next year, I will plan to not post during this last week of the year. And I won’t make promises I can’t keep.

As for today, it’s time to go make cupcakes with my kid.

I promised.