Wherein Deb gives herself a good talking to…

I think I’m a slacker. There is no amount of arguing that is going to convince me otherwise. I know that there are great blocks of time that I don’t use to their greatest potential.

Every minute I spend not furthering my goals are wasted minutes. Minutes turn to hours, hours into days and then where am I? Sitting on my great-niece’s front porch and talking to the cats – that’s where.

I read journals of other writers who hold down full time jobs (like I do) and run their families (like I don’t) and still manage to keep their output up.

How do they do this? Seriously.

I work/commute for 11 hours a day and still I have managed to carve out two hours per weekday and five hours on the weekend. I’ve taken to physically leaving my house all day Saturday so I don’t get incessant questions about what I’m doing; how it’s going; or lists of other things I could be making better use of my time doing (like laundry and cleaning).

There are going to be times when I am not going to be able to meet someone for coffee, and the Howie Mandel is jut going to have to push those people towards bankruptcy without my input. I need to work. Writing is my second job. You know, right after my freelance work.

But sometimes? Sometimes I just want to crawl into bed, or flake-out in front of whatever reality TV offering is on the tube. I don’t want to work on my manuscript, wrestle with uncoperative characters and non-existant muses. I don’t want to work on my website, I don’t want to go out trawling for freelance jobs - I just don’t want to do anything. Basically - I turn into a four year old.

What to do?

I think you need to set priorities; for yourself and for those around you.

Is writing what you want to do? Is it what drives you? Or is it something that is fun to tell your friends and family that you’re doing, but never accomplish?

You need to make a decision about your writing and you need to stick to it.

A friend of mine called my writing a “hobby” and it was at that moment I knew that a) it wasn’t a hobby; and b) even after the court ordered “classes, I do have control of my temper.

Call it whatever you want (a vocation, a calling, etc.) but if writing is NOT something you can walk away from it is most certainly NOT a hobby.

So what does all this mean?

To me it means I have to stop making excuses and get on with the business of actually completing the MS I’m working on.

It means facing up to my own demons of failure and forging ahead. It means sticking to the plan. It means cutting myself a little slack when I wander, but not so much slack that I wander off all together and never come back.

It means writing until there is nothing left in me to write, going to sleep and then writing more.

It means BEING a writer, instead of PRETENDING to be one.

It means that I should get to work. *grins*

Deb knows that sometimes giving yourself a stern lecture is the only way it'll work.

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