Getting back in the groove

I've had a hard time getting back into the writing groove.  And there's been more than a bit of guilt associated with the fact not a whole lot has happened on the writing front.  It's not that I don't have ideas--I do.  I've dutifully written them down.  I've brainstormed with pals (Hi Leann and Sheila!). 

It's not because I'm a lazy couch potato.  I can't even remember the last time I sat on the couch.  (Although I do seem to watch a LOT of Star Trek...but I do that in the evenings when I catching up on promo.)

So what's the problem?

Well, I think I figured it out.  For way too many years I did a job that involved a lot of boring, nit-picky research and assembling that information (via data entry).  I found the work to be tedious and I hated it.

...or did I?  In retrospect, it wasn't the work I hated--it was my management.  It was the work environment, where you were made to feel like a cog that could be easily replaced or worse--tossed out without a backward glance.

It used to be that I would squeeze in a little writing in between all this tedious, nit-picky work.  Now things have changed.  Writing is supposed to be my main job, and the tedious, nit-picky work (managing my MySpace pages, looking for promotional venues, putting together promotional material, research for the book) is the stuff I'm supposed to squeeze in when I'm not writing.

I don't know what to do about balancing all this stuff.  I used to want to write in the mornings.  Now I want to do the other stuff in the mornings--but when the afternoon rolls around, I don't feel like writing.  I have had some success taking a notebook to bed and writing before I go to sleep--but that's also my book-reading time.  (And I'm in the middle of one right now.  And I got a HUGE stack of books while I was at the Malice Domestic Conference, too.)

There just isn't enough time in the day to do everything.

Like that's breaking news, huh?

Comments

[Dwight Wannabe]

Insightful.

It's all about perspective, isn't it? Once our hobby becomes a job, then it's just another job.

Hmmm. So should I look forward to being published or not?

[Lorraine Bartlett]

Definitely look forward to it...but it won't be anything like you thought it would. The highs are monumental, the lows take you to the depths of hell. No doubt about it, it's a real rollercoaster ride.

[Elise]

I totally understand your problem, Lorraine. I currently have one of those soul-killing jobs and wish on a daily basis that I could find more time to write. And, to make it worse, I'm in the process of buying a house and trying to pack everything (who said I had to buy all these books?) so I can move. But I have a feeling that, if I could afford to quit the day job and write full time, I'd run into the same problems you have.
Your fellow Guppy,
Elise
P.S. Just finished Murder is Binding and loved it!

[Lorraine]

Hey, Elise, thanks for stopping by. I didn't quit the day job--got handed a pink slip (which wasn't a surprise). I absolutely love being home during the day and am grateful we no longer need my paycheck. (We've downsized our living and are still comfortable.) But sometimes writing as a job isn't as glamorous as it looks when you're still working that day job.

When we moved 15 years ago, the movers were snarling at us as our million boxes of books came off the truck. If we moved today, we'd have something lik 9 millions books. We're readers, and proud of it. But man, paper is HEAVY!