Category Archives: Choice

A Guest Post by David Heyman

“Honey, where are you?”

Physically I’m in the store with my wife, where she is asking my opinion of an item she’s seen. In my mind though – I’m on a far-off snowy plain, trying to get my heroine out of the scrape I’ve written her into. This is the world of the writer and their family, and it’s one I’m betting most of you are familiar with. Managing the scales between the time and energy we give to our writing and the time we give to other demands can be one of the more difficult challenges an aspiring writer can face.

It’s commonly called the work/life balance, but for us it is a more complex beast – one more properly named a work/work/life balance. We all have lives that include family, friends, pets and the many activities that make life worth living. These are all wonderful, but they rightfully expect an investment of your time. Then most of us have the job that pays the bills, taking care of that rewarding life and keeping the road ahead of us clear. That job also makes demands on your time, demands that can be harder to negotiate with than Fido.

Now you want to add writing, but for most of us writing no mere hobby. It doesn’t fall into the ‘pursuits’ section of that life category. No, writing for us is our second job – the one that might not be paying bills yet, but someday….

Something’s gotta give – somewhere a sacrifice must be made.

I always view my time as cake. I cut a piece of cake for my family, one for work and one for myself. If I want to write and that’s going to use some of that available time, then someone’s piece of cake is going to get smaller.

My advice: make sure you are the one making the sacrifice. Cut into your cake, not someone else’s.

Want to write on your lunch break? Sure. You can bang out that scene while you have your sandwich. Write during that boring dial-in meeting where they never call on you anyway? No, that time is committed to the job that pays the bills. Writing after play time with the kids and TV time with your spouse? Sure, but discuss it with them first.

You are the one who wants to be a writer, the big time sacrifice must come from you. Video game time, Game of Thrones watching time, Facebooking time.

Your time.

I would caution not to take all of your time, though. Don’t take away the sleep you need, or the time you exercise to stay healthy. Reserve some time for yourself to de-stress, to recharge and get the creative juices going again. Moderation is the key.

Each day is a cake that you choose where to make the cuts and choose the sizes. Your job, your friends and families all have their plates out, waiting to be serves a slice of your time.

How you distribute those slices will have a big impact on your support system going forward – and you will need that support to succeed.

David Heyman:

Dave writes both novels and short stories in the various genres of speculative fiction. His other passions include his family, gaming and reading about mountaineering. Sleep is added to the mix when needed. You can visit him at daveheyman.com

Make it Happen

March 11, 2016

fictorians

Choice Day Jobs Family Ghost Writing Interacting With Professionals Joy Dawn Johnson Networking Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life No Comments

A Guest Post by Joy Dawn Johnson

I work best in complete silence with no distractions.

Insert pacifier in crying infant

The slightest movement can distract me and completely erase the perfect sentence I had just formed in my head. A sentence that I swear will never come together quite the same again.

Fix lunch for toddler
Make a second pot of coffee

Now it’s gone and my fingers stop. I tell myself, “Just keep writing.” I’ve always loved this advice. I give the same advice to new writers but it’s also the hardest thing to do when your time is not your own.

Take crying infant to bed and pray he takes a nap
Clean Cheerios up after toddler “made it rain”

I want to “keep writing.” The last thing I want to do is stop working on something right when it’s coming together.

Get coffee

Whether it’s flowing or I’m constantly interrupted, writing reminds me of rowing.

Add forgotten creamer to coffee after burning tongue

When I was on the crew team in college, I led two boats. First, the one that won nearly every race we entered. Second, a boat of rookies that managed to tip over before our first race. The boat trapped me beneath the water and it took me over a minute free myself. I nearly drowned that day.

Reinsert pacifier into infant
Hope the mobile twirls long enough to put him to sleep

When I get my time to write. When all is quiet and I can actually hear my own thoughts and my characters start talking to me, it feels like that first boat. I’m in the zone. My fingers race and I feel alive.

But I almost never get this.

Restroom break for me and the dog
File down broken fingernail before there’s nothing left of my digit but a nub

I’m constantly pulled in so many directions that I can’t catch a good rhythm even with a short blog post. With every sentence—like every stroke of an oar in that second boat—I’m off balance and I feel like I’m about to go under again. So often, I feel like I’m drifting in the water, wanting to row, but I have no oars, no boat. I’m doing the whole treading water thing with no hope of getting to shore. I’m not going to die if I don’t hit my word goal for the day but sometimes I get so frustrated that when the stars align just right and I actually get my perfect peace and silence, I’m so overwhelmed and exhausted that my fingers won’t move. I want to write, am ready to write, but most days it feels that everything and everyone around me (yes, even my dog) has conspired to keep me from it (even though I know that’s not the case).

Change diaper
Take toddler to bed

Part of my frustration comes from my situation and wanting to make it better. Growing up, the one thing I knew I would never be was a stay-at-home mom. For years, I was the primary breadwinner of my family. Then my first son was born, and due to circumstances, I left my incredibly stressful corporate job to take care of my kiddo and give a go at writing. Now with two children under the age of two, writing has become a bit of a challenge.

My plan for this blog was to come up with a list of things I have to do every day and talk about how I overcome them. Then I realized after having to stop on the very first line of this post that I really don’t need to “come up” with anything. Instead, I added each task that made me have to stop writing. Some were more necessary than others.

Get new box of tissue from garage because I go through them like candy when I’m sick
View slideshow of “Robert Downey, Jr.’s Face on Pin-Up Girls’ Bodies”
Spend an indeterminate amount of time scrubbing my eyeballs

The balancing act: time vs. money vs. kiddos vs. my sanity.

I knew when I left my corporate job that my family would face major financial stressors. Being at home for my children has been a blessing but as you can see, it makes it nearly impossible to write.

During Superstars this year, I made the decision to find my writing time because if I never got it, I’d be forced to do the one thing I didn’t want to ever do again: go back to a cubical. For my family, it comes down to the balance of to two things: time and money. My husband and I talked about putting the kiddos in daycare a couple days a week but that would cost far more than we could afford.

I knew what I needed to do to make it happen. I started keeping my eye out for creative writing opportunities. A few weeks later, one of my Facebook writer friends (whom I will be forever grateful to) posted that her best client was looking for more ghostwriters. Even though it was for a genre and category I’d never even considered before…I went for it (because I don’t ever say “no” to something I know I can do). The author loved my samples and I just signed the contract. I worked things out with my husband to hire a babysitter a few times a week. I’ll get my writing in and still have way more time with the kiddos than I would working full-time. I’m not going to make what I did in the corporate world, but if everything pans out, I’ll be able to work on my own novels while making enough to not ever have to go back to a cubical again.

I’m always on the lookout for new opportunities and sometimes they show up when you least expect it. Earlier this week I was asked to start instructing strength training and kickboxing at my gym. Get paid to workout? Done!

Watch live webinar on submitting for freelance jobs

I’m still figuring out what works for me. Like a good plot twist, I didn’t go for the easiest solution but I’ve found my boat and oars and I’m setting off down the river. It might take time to find my zone but I’ll make it happen.

What keeps you from finding your “zone”?

What can you do to find time in your day to make it happen?

Joy Dawn Johnson:

Shortly after receiving her BFA and MBA, Joy Dawn Johnson worked as a project manager for more than ten years, including a stint in Baghdad, Iraq, as a government contractor. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and was the 2015 recipient of the Superstars Writing scholarship. Joy typically writes middle grade and young adult Sci-fi and fantasy and now ghostwrites for a USA Today bestselling author. She will begin to query agents later this year with her current work in progress, Smooth.

Read the first chapters of Smooth: JoyDawnJohnson
Website: joydawnjohnson.com
Twitter: JoyDawnJohnson
Follow and chat with Joy live on Twitch: Joylovin.

Don’t “Find” Time, Make the Time

March 4, 2016

fictorians

Choice Day Jobs Living Deliberately Making Progress as a Writer Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life Wayland Smith 3 Comments

A Guest Post by Wayland Smith

I was asked to write about finding a balance between work, life, and writing. Instead of talking about my writing credits, I’m going to run down my weekend as a way of showing what I know about the struggle to find time to write. It’s something I understand.

My regular shift is a long, overnight one. Thursday I went in to work with my shift starting at 6 PM. I was supposed to get off work at 6:30 AM, but there were some issues and our usual shortage of staff, and I ended up being released at about 12:30 in the afternoon. By the time I got home, I had been up for 24 hours. I had the rest of Friday and Saturday off, then worked a different job Sunday from 4 in the morning until 9 at night with one break in that stretch. With all that, I still got a few thousand words done over the weekend, and finished a chapter of one of my current works in progress. That’s not, “Hey, I’m cool,” that’s me showing that it doesn’t matter how busy you are, you can write if you chose to.

I hear people asking all the time, “When do you find time to write?” The answer is a simple one, but it’s one a lot of people don’t like. You fight for it. You make a commitment to yourself and you stick with it. Some people write every day, some have a word count per week, or month. It doesn’t really matter what you set for yourself. What matters it that you DO it.

Sometimes that means you don’t get to watch the game with your friends. Sometimes you don’t get to the movie you wanted to see. But, as I’ve heard many other people who are much more successful than I am so far say (and this may be part of why they are successful): Writing is a job. If you’re at all serious about it, you have to approach it like that. Jim Butcher has said, “I don’t have a muse, I have a mortgage.” That’s the attitude you need to get the words down.

So how do you find the balance? Well, that’s something you have to think about carefully. I believe the usually accepted statistic is that something like ten percent of writers manage to actually make a living off their writing. The rest of us have jobs in addition to writing. And, if you’re fond of eating, not living in a relative’s basement, and occasionally going out (or to cons), you need to keep the job.

Family is important, whether it’s a traditional tied by marriage and blood kind, or people who have become your family over time. You need these people in your life. If you don’t have them, you’re not well balanced, and that comes out in your writing, which suffers.

You need to manage your time, and you need to do it carefully. It’s going to be full of compromises. Occasionally, you’re going to have to go to work when you’d really rather be chasing the latest story idea. Sometimes, you’re going to have to tell your nearest and dearest and that you have a deadline coming up and you need some uninterrupted writing time. And sometimes, the voices in your head, or your imaginary friends, or however you like to think of it, are going to have to take a back seat so you can spend some time with the people you love. Or at least like.

You need to manage to be nice about it, but really firm. If you’ve promised time to your family, don’t slip out and start writing. If you have a goal that’s important to you and you need to put in a big push to get there, turn off your phone, shut off your internet connection, and write. It’s both the simplest and the hardest thing about writing. Writers write. Not talk about writing, not say, “I really should get some words down.” They write. And then write more. And revise and edit and rewrite. And while they’re doing all that, they have to keep a job and relationships with the people who are important to them.

All that said, I can offer a few suggestions about making some time. Note, making, not finding. You’re not going to suddenly trip over an extra hour somewhere. If you do, let me know how that happened. A few standbys that a lot of people I know use are either getting up half an hour earlier and/or writing during your lunch hour. If you bring your lunch to work, then A) it’s generally cheaper and B) the time you spent going somewhere, waiting in line, buying something, and then finding a table to eat it is time you can write. Yes, this requires some planning and dedication. So does writing. Remember those bits about it’s a job and making the time?

If your writing is really important to you, if you’re going to pursue a full time writing career no matter what, find a job that lets you write. I’ve heard Brandon Sanderson say he got a job as the night desk man at a hotel for just that reason. Night time security guard works, too. Yes, those are really radical changes to make to your life to get time to write. But then you’re back to the balance issue again. What are you willing to give up to move forward with your writing?

I’m not trying to scare anyone, or paint a picture of doom and gloom. I have a full time job, and work a few part time ones, and have a decent social life. I also managed to write just shy of 500,000 words last year. It can be done. You just to plan your time carefully. It’s worth it to me. Whether it is to you or not is something only you can decide.

Wayland Smith:

WAYLAND SMITH is the pen name for a native Texan who has lived in Massachusetts, New York, Washington DC, and presently makes his home in Virginia. His rather unlikely list of jobs includes private investigator, comic book shop owner, ring crew for a circus (then he ran away from the circus and joined home), deputy sheriff, writer, and freelance stagehand. Wayland has one novel out so far, In My Brother’s Name, and short stories in the anthologies “This Mutant Life: Bad Company”, “HeroNet Files, Vol 1,” “SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror,” and “Legends of the Dragon,” among others. A black belt in shao lin kung fu, he is also a fan of comic books, reading, writing, and various computer games (I’ll shut Civ down in one more turn. Really). He lives with a beautiful woman who was crazy enough to marry him, and the spirits of a few wonderful dogs that have passed on.