This morning I got up at 5:10 a.m., walked the dogs, and wrote two posts for the Amazon.com book blog where I’m guest-posting. I responded to some overnight tweets about my book and some email, worked out, made breakfast, and got dropped off at work by my fine partner, as we only have one car.
Today I have fielded client requests at the marketing agency I work for, written a client press release and blog post, client web copy, opened two more client jobs, got estimates and invoiced another job, and started working on a ¾ page ad concept and copy for another client. I have blogged for the company, posted to their Twitter account, and then caught up on mine. I have tracked various marketing efforts for clients and for my book. I am starting in on writing up case studies for our company blog.
About lunchtime today, I realized I’d totally forgotten to write up this post for today over here at the Night Bazaar.
Oh yeah, good times.
After work, I’ll walk 2 miles home (my fine partner works nights), work out again (if I’m lucky), feed and walk the dogs, madly catch up on any Facebook and Twitter I didn’t catch up on on my smartphone during the walk home, and try to think up something to write for my own personal blog this week.
And then, from 7:30-9:00/9:30 or so, I will make a bold attempt to write fiction. This does not always happen. Sometimes I get lost in some travel or cooking show. Or I decide I need to paint the house. But generally, this is my writing time – when I’m still awake enough to be cognizant but am becoming dopey. Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine or a couple of shots of whiskey, but more often these days, I write sober, because I have to get up the next morning and, you know, have a job.
That said, I do want to stress that I don’t write every day anymore. I may only open my files or jot something down a couple of times a week. These days, I only write every day when I’m on a deadline or really getting my groove on. I already have a day job, and turning my night job into a mindless grind just takes all the fun out of it.
So when I write, that’s when I write, with a brief break to walk the dogs. Otherwise, this is time for reading and researching and watching terrible B movies on Netflix or working on my new house. By 9:30 I’m in bed reading some bit of fiction or historical craziness, and at 10:00pm I’m passed out and getting ready to do it all over again.
I am tired a lot these days. Mostly because I’m not just writing and having a day job. I’m also doing book marketing. If you want to sell more than 10 copies of a book as a first-time writer, you have to spend a good chunk of time doing this, and it’s exhausting. But it’s this work that makes it possible for you to sell more books. Like the snake eating its own tail.
This winter has been dark, sluggish, and hellish for me. Like a lot of writers, my health is not the best – I’ve got a chronic illness, which takes its toll – and I have been in and out of doctors’ offices the last couple of months for reasons various and sundry. But that’s just how I roll. That’s how life rolls. The minute you roll over, it’s done. Having nearly died a couple of times, I enjoy living, however exhausting it may sometimes be.
I would argue that there’s really no balance to be had with the writing life, if you want it. Your life will always be out of balance. Too much day jobbery, not enough writing. Too much writing, not enough day jobbery. When your relationships are doing great, your writing suffers. When your writing suffers, your relationships do great. When your health is great, your writing is terrible. When your health is poor, you’re suddenly inspired to write mad numbers of mad words.
I spend my time like a person who knows there isn’t a whole lot of it, I suppose. I enjoy what I can, when I can, and carve out pieces for one to give to the other when necessary. Maybe there’s some cosmic overall life balance to be had, but if that’s so, it’s something only other people will be able to see when they look at the long, crazy arc of my life, long after I’m all gone to dust.
Pip Hunn on February 14, 2011
Kameron;
I can empathise in the busyness of your day! I’m lucky in that I’ve just managed to cut my day-job down to two incredibly long days, leaving one to be zonked afterwards and then a few days free to concentrate on writing. The idea of doing something ‘balanced’ doesn’t carry much weight, though!
I was wondering if you’d do a blog post in the future about your experiences in marketing? It’s a fascinating topic but non-authors rarely get much information about it other than ‘Here’s my signing schedule’ and ‘Oh, wow, I finally got the proofs for the cover!’
Cheers;
Pip
Kameron Hurley on February 15, 2011
Ha!
I’ll suggest to the NB crowd that we do a marketing post. I’d be curious to see what other folks are doing, too. The impression I’m getting is that I’m a bit of an outlier in my marketing push, which is bad. If you want to sell any books these days (especially if you’re publishing with a small press), you have to do a lot of legwork (or pay somebody to do it).
stina on February 15, 2011
Ditto what you said, Kameron. My husband keeps going on about how NSB must love me because I do so much on that end of things. I keep telling him that’s just the business end of being a writer these days.
Courtney on February 15, 2011
Count me in for a marketing topic…I’m still trying to figure out how/what to do, and would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts and experience.
Bradley on February 15, 2011
I’m in as well, y’all. Frankly, I’m not sure any of us *knows* that what we’re doing helps, or if we do we don’t know *how much*, but it’s fun to talk about and perhaps improve on an approach if we see one we like. I think Carol’s advice of “pick two things and do those” is great advice.
Kameron Hurley on February 16, 2011
Yeah, let’s def. do a marketing topic, then. Different books will respond to different approaches (cause they have diff’t audiences), and I know that finding the right venues where I need to spend time is a process of simple trial and error the first time through. That said, old-school PR has served me pretty decently.
Dolly on February 17, 2011
I think this is the best post on Balancing I’ve ever read – because what you believe is true. If we want to be writers, we can forget about balance in its actual definition. I’ve struggled and struggled and struggled to gain balance. But one thing always slips up. I am so busy in my day job, that in the evenings I am too tired. So I can either work on writing, or I can do some exercise, but I haven’t got the energy to do both (I usually choose writing). When I got really good about fitness, exercising every day, my writing slipped. Now, with my to-do lists and timetables, I continue to struggle to include at least all the important stuff that I need to do, but then list grows and ends up with all the other stuff I want to / need to do. So it’s rather discouraging to see the crosses on the list for tasks not finished. But I think from now on, I shall tell myself – THERE WILL BE NO BALANCE. JUST GET ON WITH IT AND DO WHAT YOU CAN. Let’s see if that works.