Crazycakes

Over the last month, I've done exactly one productive thing. Unfortunately, that productive thing wasn't writing a book. In fact, in the last six months I've done almost nothing productive when it comes to writing a book. I'm not okay with that, but that concern is for another post.

Long-time readers know I'm a process engineer. I'm devoted to studying and improving productivity and output; it's my passion. I never thought I could go at it, though, with the same sort of single-minded determination I used to use to write novels. Engineering seems so...black and white. I guess I was just waiting for the right opportunity.

A month ago, I became head of a project that meant big time savings for my organization. It had the potential to improve communication between various orgs, and almost assuredly would create higher morale and job satisfaction for my minions and minions everywhere. The only problem was I had 3 weeks to pull the whole thing off, including implementation and beta testing. During those three weeks, I received requests for the same program to be implemented at other sites -- that would be the program we hadn't even written yet.

And I have a life.

Suddenly, I felt very, very kindred with Maven Erica :-) My phone wouldn't stop ringing. My email was full of bug reports and frequently asked questions. I had one week to get 100 people up to speed on a user interface that had never been tested and was barely developed. I had three devoted coders working around the clock to keep up with the changes. I was making phone calls and shooting off emails to organizations I'd never contacted before and presenting the concept to managers I desperately needed to have buy in from.

It was so, so awesome.

The energy was amazing. Apparently, I thrive on God-awful deadlines. Who knew? And seeing all the shocked-yet-hopeful faces when it was announced the project had eliminated the need for the daily afternoon meeting we'd been having for thirty years -- quite literally, priceless.

I wonder if we're authors because we like to see what's in our imagination come alive. I can equate every step in this project with the same sort of ephemeral buzz I get when writing. First, we had a workshop to talk about the future state [of the meeting we ended up eliminating, w00t]. That was like when I get together with the Mavens and brainstorm the concept of a novel. Then I was locked in a room with three bright, enthusiastic coders ready to tackle the logic to create the software -- that was like storyboarding. (We even had food.) Then we banged out a draft just to see if the concept worked; I don't need to draw this part of the picture for you. Then we fine-tuned it, and then, knowing it was buggy as hell, we released it into the world to have beta testers help us locate and smash them. (Contesting and beta reading, anyone?)

It was and still is hard to come in every day to my inbox and realize the interface isn't perfect. It will probably never be perfect, as it's written in Visual Basic and heavily utilizes Microsoft programs...(sorry, Keira, but it's true). But when the feedback is positive -- wow. Is that a great feeling or what? And when we're improving job satisfaction, not just because we're saving faceless money, but because we're literally helping people have a better day...that's nothing short of amazing.

The only problem is that during this time, my "life" became about this project. Either I was working on this project or not sleeping because of this project or worrying about this project or out kicking it with friends, valiantly trying to forget about this project. And now, just 2 days from full implementation, I'm still blogging about this project. It never ends!

But I am trying. My game plan this last week has been to come home ON TIME (+/- an hour of over time), work out, take a nap, and either a) play with my Xbox (damn you, Ryu!) b) watch an episode or two of LOST (can you really watch just one?) c) read a book (Lost Duke of Wyndham is on my TBR) d) go to happy hour (no comment) or e) do nothing. Yes, that's right. Do nothing.

But we had to filter through a, b, c, and d to get to nothing.

YOUR TURN: Do you ever let yourself stop? Do you ever feel like even when you're "relaxing," you're really trying to cram something fun into your day? Do you ever find yourself replacing the joy of writing (Freudian? I just typed "job") with the joy of something else? (there goes that job again)

Refilling the well, redux

I feel like I'm Erica's biggest fan these days, but her posts get me thinking :) Yesterday she posted about Refilling the Well and specifically about having taken time off from writing (and vowing to get back to it). It made me think about my own writing life.

I agree with what Erica says, that sometimes you have to take time off to refill the well. I've done that many times and I know that it's worked. I also think that sometimes it's really easy for us writers to be hard on ourselves. Many of us have other full time jobs, plenty of other commitments, and, you know, a life to live. I find time to write the words I need to because it's a priority of mine (and because I have a deadline) but I have also learned to forgive myself when I don't make it.

For example, I had a business retreat in Charleston, SC last week the result of which is that I had a spa appointment midday Thursday and the rest of the day off. My plan for weeks had been to pull out my computer and spend the afternoon relaxed and writing. I was practically salivating at the opportunity -- I could write Thursday-Monday -- think of the progress I could make!!

But after I walked back to my room after the spa, I wasn't sure I was ready to write. So I wandered down to the bookstore (in the hotel - bliss!) and picked up Valiant by Holly Black, a book that so many friends have recommended to me. And then I wandered down the street and came across one of my favorite restaurants that I'd forgotten about. It was middle of the afternoon and they were slow so I snagged a little table outside in the garden. I had a beer, read and people-watched, had amazing She Crab Soup and Shrimp & Grits. Yum!

And when I got back to the hotel, I still didn't write! I threw open the doors to the balcony and read and napped until it was time to go to dinner. All that time I'd set aside for writing, gone. But it was an amazing day, so relaxing and fulfilling. I think, in the end, it was just what I needed. To just be in the world and not pushing. It was a time to refill the well.

So yeah, I think it's important to make writing a priority. But I also think there are times when other things have to be a priority -- the day job, the family, the pets, plain old life: yourself. I think the problem is when you know you're using other things as an excuse not to write. When you have time to write but you just don't, over and over again. That's when it's time to re-examine, maybe re-prioritize and re-commit.

But sometimes, you have to let the writing go. And it's important to really enjoy those times, to recognize them and live in them, rather than always feeling guilty.

So what do y'all think? When was the last time you put writing first and felt really good about it? When was the last time you didn't put writing first and felt really good about it? How do you juggle it all?

Support Yourself

So, I joined Seventy Days of Sweat and so far I've written... um... nothing. I joined 100x100 (one hundred words a day for one hundred days) last year and um.... it didn't stick. In fact, I think the only writing challenge that's ever worked for me was when on her blog Diana Peterfreund challenged everyone to write -- something, anything -- every day for a month. Her motto was "writers write" and so she said we should all write! This couldn't have come at a more perfect time for me -- I was trying to finish the first draft of The Forest of Hands and Teeth and I was gearing up for a massive trial -- working 80 hour weeks. There were days when the most time I had to write was the 8 minutes it took for my mac 'n' cheese pasta to boil. But I wrote during those 8 minutes because Diana was (and still is) right: writers write.

All of these challenges and all of these goals are very useful and they're great! I'm all for anything that gets people writing (the old motto I learned around the RWA boards: BITHOC -- butt in chair, hands on keyboard). But here's the thing that I have to remind myself: at the end of the day, it's only you and the keyboard. You and that blank piece of paper. At a certain point it can't just be about being accountable to other people -- about sending an email to a loop checking in -- it has to be about being accountable to yourself. In the end, no one else can make you sit down and write except yourself.

Of course I'm not saying to go out and unsubscribe from your loops and disconnect from your support systems. Trust me, I know that at the end of a long day sometimes you just want to steam your face with pasta water rather than sit down and bang out a few paragraphs that you'll end up deleting anyway. And sometimes the only thing that forces you to trudge to your computer is knowing that the next day someone is going to ask you: did you write last night? But I am saying that you also need to find that accountability within yourself. It has to matter to *you* if you wrote or not. You have to answer that question for yourself and be satisfied with the answer.

And here's something that I'm starting to catch a glimpse of now that I have some publisher-set deadlines off in the future. Deadlines don't necessarily force you to write. It may seem reasonable to say "well, once I have a contract and publisher-set deadlines I'll have built in accountability so I won't need to rely on myself any more -- something external will push me to sit down and write." Here's a truth: some published authors miss deadlines (well, except for Nora Roberts). Some published authors misjudge and come close to missing deadlines. My next book is due in roughly six months -- that's at least 10k a month I need to write to get it done (and let's not forget that it took me 4 months to revise the last one). That's over 2k a week. How much did I write this week? Last week? Nothing. See, I have a deadline and it's not making me accountable, because that has to come from me. A contract does not make you write -- the skills, perseverence, dedication, motivation you learned getting to that contract make you write.

I'm all about supporting each other and riding each other to reach farther and write better. Trust me! I love nothing more than celebrating an awesome word count or an awesome chapter or writing The End or submitting -- all of it! And I love it when people celebrate those steps with me (like all the awesome support for my book cover!) At the same time I think that we all have to find that part of ourselves that wants to write -- that needs to write -- and that's what has to drive us. Because in the end, no one else will: it's you and the blank page.

Be sure to drop by tomorrow and visit our Guest Maven, Mave Fave Angie Fox!

Hey, they have books in there?

For the last three weeks, MaveFave Keira and I have met up on the weekend to write. Since many weeks our little write meets are the only time I get to do writing-related things, they're quickly becoming sacred. But last week's write meet was particularly inspiring, as I had an Aha Moment so big it derailed my entire set of plans for the weekend.

The first time we got together, it was at a small library. The no-talking thing was difficult, so when it unexpectedly closed at 5pm (what??) we went to the local Pizza Hut to talk craft. Not the best move, after all: not only was it a bad thing for our waistlines, but it also meant we spent the entire night chatting instead of working.

Which isn't to say it was all bad, since that's the night I had my aha moment about BTL stories. Keira got an impromptu Maven Storyboarding 602 presentation. But no writing occurred.

The next week, we met at a coffee shop. This was better than the previous week because we weren't prohibited from talking, but our table was small and there was still food nearby. However, we did manage to do some writing things, which was awesome. I took my previous week's idea to expand my story and put thoughts into action, writing up a new micro synopsis I then translated into a brand new storyboard the following day. (That weekend, work plans were also derailed in favor of writing stuff. Sensing a theme...)

With my brand-spanking new storyboard, you'd think I spent the next few days furiously banging out new scenes. But I couldn't, because in my case "bigger story" means bigger social and political flavor and for some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a sense of 18th century British Abolition staring at the walls of my home office. Too broke to go on Amazon until the following paycheck, I let the story sit.

Learning from the previous weeks, Keira suggested the following week we meet at an enormous library in the middle of town. Bigger tables, more privacy if we wanted to talk, and yet still the general no-talking rule -- packing up my new storyboard with the intent of forcing myself to write crap, I thought meeting at the library was a cool idea. Until I got to the library, at which point I went, "Omigod. There are books here!"

Yes, people! Thousands and thousands of books! Many of them non-fiction! Many of them research! And at least twenty of them on 18th century British Abolition! All free to read anytime I want! Who knew?!?

Uh, everybody. Everybody says "Don't forget to go to your local library. It's the best place to get research material." But I never understood. Did I think my subject was too obscure to be stocked locally? Certainly, by now I've found enough obscure stuff on Amazon to know they print books on my subject. Did I think it would be too hard to find the books on the shelves? It only took a few tries to get the hang of the system. Did I think inter-library loan was going to be the only way to get my hands on the books I need? The big central library had almost all the books not only on their shelves, but checked in. No wait list!

In short, I took home about twenty books. Not just books on Abolition, but also books on the history of lace. I've already read 3, devoting every evening and all my breaks to pouring over the books as fast as I can. After all, I can't start writing until I know what I'm writing about. What was I waiting for?

What cool book did you find at the library? Have you gone? Never gone? Why? Did you know how easy it is to get BOOKS there? Are you one of those lucky people who doesn't need to research her stories *cough cough Contemporary*

From the Trenches: Maven Tips #10-12

As you must be aware by now, thanks to B.E. Sanderson and the Roar for Powerful Words Award, we're blogging about writing tips this week. Now, so far, the other girls have done a great job of sharing tips they've found useful over the course of their writing career. If you know me, though, you probably won't be surprised to read that I'm planning to give you some tips that I made up. Hey, it's more fun for me that way, and besides, I'm too lazy to try and think up where I've either heard or used someone else's. (Although, to be totally fair, *of course* I heard these somewhere else. It's just that I wasn't looking for them at the time; they sort of rolled up together over the last few years. Or maybe if I read them, they didn't really make sense at first. Only with experience and crushing rejection can come knowledge and growth!)

Tip #1: Subplots and subcharacters can be used to add setting to your h/h romance / primary story

Of course, lots of stories have subplots or subcharacters that don't contact the h/h at all. Like a villain subplot or character, for example, that may not share scenes with the h/h until the end of the book. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about using your subplots (Mavens prefer "story threads") to give your main characters something to do besides sit there (or stand there, if you prefer) and nod, wink, arch their brows, shrug, and generally stare at each other. Especially if one or both of them have beguiling eyes.

If your hero has a hobby, for example, he can be doing it. A heart-to-heart between an h/h in his conservatory while he's elbows-deep in roses is always way more fun to read (and strikes more emotionally) than a scene where he's having dinner. Unless your character's hobby is eating, in which case, the dinner isn't the setting (fork to mouth, fork to plate) as much as the character's reaction to it (savoring, laughing, piling more on his plate).

My point is, give your characters outside interests (subplots, hobbies, friends, etc) who can give them stuff to do that hopefully ALSO reveals something personal about them. And then don't forget to write the payoff scene. I read one recently where the hero destroyed his rose garden after the heroine left him. Powerful stuff.

Tip #2: Never forget the reaction

In relationship to Tip #1, this could be the big payoff scene. If you mention roses 10 times and never have a rose payoff scene, what was the point? Well, maybe it was the 10 reactions the characters had to the roses. At first, the hero might take private pride in his garden. Then the heroine discovers it and he's embarrassed. He's mean to her (because he's embarrassed) and she snaps back at him (because she's embarrassed she embarrassed him). Then he feels guilty, so he secretly starts making a new kind of rose for her (when she gets it: payoff. But don't forget to have her react!).

Similarly, adding detail for detail's sake is a waste of print (generally speaking). If she notices his cuffs are blue, what difference does it make unless blue is her favorite color, the hero's eyes are that same blue, the blue totally doesn't match the hideous nectarine waistcoat, blue was the color of her father's face when he died, etc. It's not that we don't care for detail at all, but just that we care MORE when we know WHY we should care.

Tip #3: Characters as actors

Yeah, yeah, I wrote a whole blog on this subject. With pictures. But I can't get enough. My characters are actors, plain and simple. I want their body language, what they choose to wear, how they wear it, the patterns in their speech, their favorite poses, to all remind the reader over and over that this is who the character is. If the character is nice to old people, there must be old people in the story. Otherwise, it's backstory -- I have to tell you he has patience with old people. I had to learn this the hard way with If You Asked the Devil to Dance, and I'm still not entirely sure I nailed the hero in that book. I even know why that is: the hero was dealing with a reputation brought on by a perception of him that he didn't have of himself. Because he was already a loner by the time I started the story, he had very few people to show this perception to until the heroine got to know him and she could debunk the myth. Tricky story. I should've gone for something easier (which I totally did in the 2nd book; hence, there's at least 20 people in it to witness the hero's idiocy).

Ok, well I could talk about that subject forever, but I'm already woefully off-schedule. Thanks, B.E., for the opportunity to blather on! We (heart) you, too, MaveFave. (That's going to get my vote, unless someone can do better...)

Oh, and one thing I almost forgot: Though all the Mavens provide complete support and are utter devotedly to each other (and, more importantly: me), and I would consider them all to have provided the same level of encouragment for my writing career, more than anyone else, Maven Erica has come across more writing tips and created more of her own processes that have affected me in hundreds of little ways than any one other person on the planet. So while I love them all equally, Maven Erica gets my vote for Most Bestest Tip Giver Award. *cheers*

Stolen from Darcy, stolen from Carrie, stolen from Erica
YOUR TURN: 10 days into the new year, people! How much have you written so far? A scene? 20 pages? A book? And did you vote for us over at the Preditors & Editors' Readers Choice poll? (Oops, how did that shameless self-promo get in there?!)

One for the road

Transcribed from an Actual (Overheard) Conversation:

BOSS MAN: Why didn't you meet your astronomically impossible goal today?

NEW MANAGER: (smiles politely) We tried, we really did.

BOSS MAN: Are you planning to have everyone stay late? Get the job done?

NEW MANAGER: (smiles politely) We'll keep at it while we can. See how far we can get tonight.

BOSS MAN: Tonight, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday -- overtime's available.

NEW MANAGER: (smiles politely) There are a few volunteers.

BOSS MAN: Well, I hope you can find a few more. You can stay all night, work all weekend if you have to. I don't see why you can't complete your impossible goal in the next few days.

NEW MANAGER: (smiles politely)

BOSS MAN: It's your head, you know.

NEW MANAGER: (smiles politely)

BOSS MAN: (to others in room) Will you look at this guy? I can't phase him! Doesn't matter what I say, he's a cool cat. (to new manager) C'mon, tell me. What do I have to say to freak you out?

NEW MANAGER: (continues to smile politely) Boss Man, I'm only doing what the old manager told me to do.

BOSS MAN: Which was what?

NEW MANAGER: "Just keep breathing."

I think it's easy, especially at this time of year, to forget that not everything is *so important* you have to freak out about it. Some things are important, of course. I've heard they sort of frown on you leaving your children at school until 10 o'clock at night. But most of the small things, including our self-imposed goals, are always as manageable as we make them.

And they are also only as manageable as we make them.

Very few elements of the daily grind are worth sacficing our personal well-being. While it's (usually) true there's no pain, no gain, that good things are worth working for (and rarely easy to attain), and that slackers are total losers (my own quote?), it's also true that you can't enjoy the fruits of your labors if you're dead.

Which is why I'm ditching this post to go for a walk. Anyone coming with me?

No Rights Make a Wrong

No, the Mavens aren't trying to mess with your head by mixing up the days we post. It's actually Wednesday...perhaps either to your disappointment or joy (if you had a sudden panic attack wondering where Hump Day went).

I think the first week of December must be the last week people think they can schedule stuff and still have you "be" in 2007. Is it busy this week or what?! Maybe it's just me. Hm...let's see if I can tie this into my post somehow...

(It just wouldn't be Maven Lacey's day if we didn't wander around looking for the point, I'm thinking.)

Anyway, in the spirit of this week's pseudo-topic, I want to talk about mental roadblocks. Some uber-devoted followees might know I recently was offered a leadership position at work.

No, I'm not going to blog about work!

/Lacey ducks from Maven Erica's bat

Ok, I'm sort of going to blog about work. Like Erica says, I only know me best. My point here is that some really, really uber-devoted followees might recognize the position I was offered as the same position I meant to take when I launched last year's Lacey Plans to Take Over the World plan on my blog. (There's no link because that one really *was* about work and I decided to take it down.) But let's pretend you saw my 10-step plan for World Domination.

(This was before I hooked up with my "friends" who had the same goal... What's that about keeping your enemies closer?)

So I had this plan for how I was going to finagle my way into this lead position. It was a great plan. Completely foolproof. I started out pretty gung-ho about it. w00t, have coffee. w00t, get one step closer to World Domination. But after a couple of months -- right about when I started seeing some real progress -- I got out the excuse brakes and started applying them. Hard. Appeals for me to complete certain things went procrastinated. I started to hide from high-visibility projects. I put off a super-major milestone on my list -- for NINE MONTHS -- because... because... because... Uh.

Hm.

Why'd I do that?

Oh, right. Because I was afraid to succeed.

I knew I was afraid to succeed. My master plan was moving me along with a little more momentum than I'd expected, partly because it was even better than I'd predicted (muah ha ha ha) and partly because other people removed roadblocks for me. I knew that as soon as I got to my first deliverable, I'd be swamped with responsibility i.e. work. And wait a minute...I have other goals besides World Domination. Like, uh, writing. Becoming an author. Selling lots of books. Touching people's lives.

Okay, so now you're thinking that I put on the brakes at my day job and threw myself into my writing so I could catch up to where I wanted to be if I wanted to balance out my progress. And you would be wrong. Because think about it: If I suddenly sold, what would happen? Contracts. Revisions. Copy edits. Galleys. Promotion. Marketing. Promotion. Writing more books -- ones even better than the first, but in way less time. Promotion.

As I watched the writers around me drop like flies (flies with Good Deals), I started to panic some more. What if I sold? What would I do if one day I woke up and I had so much responsibility i.e. work I didn't know where to start?

I said this to someone the other day and it made her laugh (I think; darn you, Yahoo!), but whenever I start to feel overwhelmed with the prospect of new responsibility I look back at some of the things I never thought I could do, didn't know where to start, wasn't sure how it'd end, but did anyway. Like thermodynamics. WHAT was I going to do with that class? Was it *really* necessary for me to take that course? Was it *really* worth 80 hours of my life? Was it really completely out of my scope of normal understanding, and have I *ever* used it...ever?

Truthfully, no. But if you count all the times I've ever held it up as an example of something I could acclimate myself to and be successful at despite all odds, then yes.

What is your thermo class? What do you measure your threshold against when you get to feeling a little overwhelmed with what COULD go right? Have you ever put the success brakes on to sit back and focus on...nothing? Do you ever remind yourself that we only live once?
(er, depending on various beliefs, I suppose :-))

I'm Alive! ...Barely

Uh, time management? Ra-ra, do some?

Yeah, I'm the Late Maven this week. Even though I've been almost comatose for nearly 24 hours, don't think that's going to get me off the hook with Maven Erica. I knew weeks in advance, as Maven Jacqueline pointed out earlier in the week, that I had a post due today--and I even knew the subject of it. So last-minute death-by-suffocation-slash-killer-headache isn't a reason to be late. It's an excuse.

Which brings me to *my* time management advice, which is to take advantage of notice when you have it, try to get notice when you don't, and keep your schedule open for those pesky little emergencies that crop up. All while working your jobs in their scheduled priority (sorta like what Maven Darcy was saying yesterday).

Some things I know I have to do in advance are blogging, dental checkups, eating during the week (on the weekends, I eat most of my meals out), walking the dog and myself, and so on. By keeping a pretty detailed calendar in Outlook, I can prevent double-booking my evenings and weekends (hold on a minute while I flaunt my fabulous personal life). I can also see what will happen if I don't get something done on time. Don't make the RWA meeting Tuesday night? Spend Wednesday trying to get into email contact with the board members, just because I didn't show up. And so on.

At my job, we call work that doesn't get done on time "travelers," and most of my 8 hour day goes to looking for ways to prevent work from being completed late.

Unfortunately, in real life nobody is going to walk up to you waving a chart and ask you why you didn't walk the dog tonight. You have to be accountable to Fido because you want to be. But I suggest, as I did back in the other time management-type blog I did, making a list (either mental or physical) of work that is okay to travel/delay. For example, I try *really hard* not to travel my exercise. The laundry can be done tomorrow, the floor swept next week, and really, neither is the worse for it. But exercise is like interest investing. Once today is gone, it's totally gone. You can't get it back.

So I actually prioritize exercise over writing. Gasp!

What are some non-comprimisable work statements you have in your life? How are you going to prevent getting them done from taking time away from your writing? Or are you? Anyone else work out--do you have tips for me on how to get both done in a very limited timeframe?

Stop Writing!

How's that for time management? When I started writing seriously a little over two years ago, my writing plan was the "catch as catch can" variety. This meant I wrote (and did all the things that go with writing - research, plotting, craft honing, etc.) whenever I could. I kept my laptop on the kitchen table or on the island and maintained a "drive-by writing" schedule. I actually wrote a good deal of Glorious that way and, strangely, it worked.

What didn't work about it is that I felt as if I never had enough time to write because I was always doing it in snippets. The truth was I hadn't prioritized the rest of my life in order to accommodate the writing. A few months ago, this finally sank in and the answer, surprisingly, was: stop writing.

What I mean is to allow yourself to be "done" for the day. You could always write more. You could always clean more (but who wants to!). You could always do anything more. But, there are only so many hours in a day (cue Bill!) and you have to prioritize (see Maven Erica's Monday post).

It's very, very hard to stop writing (or whatever it is you love to do). Some days it's almost impossible, in fact. But there comes a time, when you simply must focus on other things: family, paying bills, bathing, eating. You laugh, but how many times have you waited to eat until your head was pounding and your stomach started to devour itself because you Couldn't. Step. Away?

I began to incorporate writing tasks into my to-do lists. Instead of:

1) Laundry
2) Balance checkbook
3) Grocery shopping
4) Writing

I got more specific:

1) Finish scene with Wroxton and Tess
2) Read Maven Lacey's scene
3) Map next scene
4) Laundry
5) Balance checkbook
6) Grocery shopping

Notice how the writing stuff moved up? No accident! I find that if I do my writing tasks first thing, I don't feel harried later in the day for having not written. And by not written, I mean not written enough. You have to recognize your limitations and accept them. My mom says things are much more complicated nowadays because people just have more to do. You might think that's a "good old days" nostalgia idea, but she's right. Even she has more to do now that she's retired!

Since I've adopted this technique of stepping away from writing when I've accomplished my daily goals, I actually feel more productive. Writing to daily goals increases my production, for sure, but it also helps the other aspects of my life that maybe get ignored (okay, sometimes I still forget to eat!).

How about you? Ever step away from the ball to increase perspective or productivity? What tricks keep you sane in the neverending tangle of things to do?

Um, What's Time Management?

Like Erica, I like to write to-do lists. And then I promptly lose them.

Alas, it's true. Maven Jacqueline is not the most organized person on the planet. In fact, I could probably vie for the title of Least Organized Person on the Planet. (My eldest son could probably make a run for second place. The apple does not fall far from the tree!)

So, how does an organizationally-challenged person like me hold down a full-time job, maintain one personal blog and one group blog (most of the time, anyway), keep up with day-to-day household tasks, and still find time to write?

Uh, beats me?

Okay, I'm kidding. I do know how I do it. Unfortunately, it's a completely unscientific method that leaves plenty of room for error, not to mention spending a good deal of my time running around with my hair on fire (figuratively speaking, of course).

In a nutshell, I do have a to-do list in my head. And that list, thankfully, I can't lose. I know the broad outlines of what I have to do and when each item has to be done. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to approach a particular project, especially if it's work or blog-related. I do a lot of the writing in my head in the days leading up to the point at which I absolutely must start or I won't make the deadline. Finally, at the last possible minute, I do whatever it is I have to do and manage to finish just in the nick of time.

Kinda like this blog post. Tuesdays are always my day, right? And we have our blog topics mapped out for weeks in advance (because the other Mavens are way more organized than me!). Why didn't I sit down and write this post a week ago or even over the weekend instead of waiting until the morning it was due to crank it out?

I could give a lot of pseudo-psychological answers to that question, but I think the answer's pretty obvious: I like to wait until the last minute. It's my m.o. and has been since I was a kid. I never finished a term paper or other project until minutes before it was due. I need the challenge of getting things done right now to motivate me. And usually, I do pretty good work under pressure.

Certainly, in my academic and work life, this strategy has worked well for me over the years. It's harder with writing because, at least at this point in my life, there really aren't any deadlines except those I make for myself. And because I know those deadlines are real, it's easier to slough them off. If the words aren't coming or the scene's just not working, it's all too easy to dart off on blog rounds or check my email obsessively or find someone to strike up a chat session with. Procrastination is my middle name.

Conversely, however, writing is the one thing in my long mental to-do list that I do because I want to, not because someone expects it of me. And so, I make time for it, usually by not doing all those other things until the last minute. I slip in writing (or writing-related tasks) wherever and whenever I can.

So I guess, in a manner of speaking, I do have a time management strategy. It's just not one I'd advocate others using. To-do lists and schedules are much better for most people. But if they're not your style--as they are definitely not mine--then they probably won't work for you. I know all efforts to confine my life to anything but the broadest outlines of structure have met with dismal failure.

YOUR TURN: Do you like schedules and structure, or are you a free spirit? If you're disorganized, what tricks do you use to help yourself get things done when you must?

P.S. I am thrilled to announce that Carnally Ever After was #2 on Cobblestone Press's bestseller list for the month of August. Not bad for a debut release, eh?