(Screen cap courtesy of http://www.underthegunreview.net)
The Chronicles of Riddick is not my favorite movie, but pretty much anything Judi Dench says is memorable and that line has stuck with me.
I do believe in balance, and I’m happiest when things in my life are in balance. There hasn’t been a ton of balance this year, and I’ve not been very happy. My mission for fall is to rebalance my shit.
Starting with my writing.
Publishing Snowburn focused me on that work. Even though I was no longer writing it, I was still thinking about it all the time. Promoting it. Reading reviews of it. Thinking about more ways to promote it. Although I declared it “done” more than six months ago, it’s still been on my mind every day since then. I usually have several projects on the go at any one time, but not this year. Snowburn has been all-consuming. No balance.
Promoting Snowburn has kept me tied tightly to the social media outlets through which I’m pushing the book. Twitter. Goodreads. Facebook (to a lesser extent). These have felt all-consuming, too. Because my market is primarily in the US (so far), with the time change, I’ve spent most of the evening hours I’d usually spend writing on social media. For me, social media is, well, social. It’s a concerted effort to engage with potential readers. That’s a very different activity than writing. Maybe it’s an introvert thing, but I find social media draining, while I find writing energizing. So instead of recharging during the evenings, I’m exhausted by the time I go to bed. No balance.
While my “vacation” this year was not really a vacation, it was a complete change of pace and gave me a chance to assess why I’ve been unusually unhappy this year and what I can do to rebalance my life.
The first thing is to get several projects on the go again. I re-read both Throwing Fire and Neon Blue while I was away and Throwing Fire has stalled for me. The story and characters are not calling to me. I’ve got nothing new to say. But Tsara and her demon have lots to say. So I’m going to shuffle my publishing schedule (wee, the joys of being indie!), push Neon Blue to the front and finish it, and keep Throwing Fire simmering on the back burner while I do. Rebalanced.
Next is to change my social media behavior. Reading some of Nat Russo’s blog posts about getting the most out of Twitter and recognizing that, as an introvert, social media leaves me drained instead of energized has informed this thinking. So, thoughts on how to rebalance:
1. Instead of staying on the internet all night (and all weekend), I’ll set aside ten minutes every hour to do social media stuff. The rest of the hour, the internet is off.
2. I’ll take my iPad to work with me and do social media responses through the day (in the same sort of 5-10 minute bites), so there’s not a backlog to deal with at night.
3. I’ll compose blog posts and promotional tweets offline and in advance, instead of staring in terror at an empty “Compose New Tweet” box.
4. I’ll write blog posts in particular at times when I feel creative (during “writing time”), so that I generate interesting, new content rather than reactive crap.
5. On weekends, instead of lurking around the house (and on the internet), I’ll get out and write in places I find stimulating. Cafes (avoiding internet cafes), movie theatres, the ice rink. Places where I’m surrounded by people but do not have to interact with them. Places which do not have internet access.
I’ve been implementing these ideas this week, and I already feel better. I’ve written more new material this week than I have in months, and I’m enthusiastic about it. Interestingly, engagement on Twitter is at an all-time high this week, so maybe being better balanced also makes me more interesting to engage with, and isn’t that the goal of all of this in the end?
E J Frost 