This past week my kids left to spend a week with their grandparents. It is the point that marks the downward swing of summer. It also corresponds nearly every year with our anniversary. We love our kids but having 4 daughters so close in age [there are 4 ½ years between the oldest and the youngest] can be exhausting. We enjoy having a week to do whatever we want, whenever we want [without an entourage].
This year we started thinking about what we wanted to do for our “vacation” and we decided that we were going to use the week to get ahead of the game. There are always so many things to be done, so many projects to pursue, that it can feel overwhelming. Most days I feel torn between the sudden growth of Writing Career Coach and my need to be a wife and mom. How can a person write a website on The Balanced Life and live such an insane schedule?
When I was in college I learned that if I spent the first two weeks of each semester doing double the work then the balance of the semester I could read a reasonable amount, study a reasonable amount and maintain a 4.0 GPA [despite taking a good number of honors and upper level classes].
The same is true for you as authors. The start of a new project is when it is fresh and exciting. It is when there is a surge of creativity and you seem to hear voices around the clock.
Why do authors not capitalize on this surge of creativity? Because we convince ourselves we are too busy. I don’t believe it, however, because every year hundreds [actually thousands] of people do NaNoWriMo and write an entire novel during the second busiest month in the whole year.
So, really all we have are excuses. Why not decide this week to get a jump start on things? You are always going to be busy so decide to add one more thing to this week’s plate. Get that one project done you’ve been meaning to do.
If that is too much then start small with this, think about who your ONE target reader is for your current WIP [work in progress]. What does that person read? Where does that person shop? What does that person like to eat? Think about who that person really is deep down. If you can’t answer those questions then how do you know if they’ll buy your book?
Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.
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