Prioritizing

In my recent interview on Pitch University, the final question and answer were:

Q. What skill is next on your list to learn?

Angelica: Learning to balance my everyday demands and my writing time. And social media time. And laundry time. And time with my husband. I'll let you know if any of those happen.

Since that interview, it has seeped into my brain that this balance would not happen on its own. So I'm changing a few things in order to give me more actual writing time.

Firstly, I've been pretty faithful about posting on this blog 2-3 times a week, and I want to be able to continue to do that. But much of my blogging time is spent searching for contests and researching other topics to blog about. So I'm going to be trying some new things like interviews with authors (the first one will be next Monday, May 16, with debut-YA author Karen Sandler) and some updates on what I'm reading.

Also, my posts have not been on specific days, but in the future I'm shooting for always posting on Mondays, and then another post on Wednesday or Thursday. I wanted some flexibility in there so that I can take advantage of YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday topics that strike my fancy.

I also decided to take a hiatus from my critique group meetings for a while. This was a really hard decision to make--I learn so much from being a part of this group, and I hope I offer good insights in return. But the fact of it is that Tu and Thurs are my only entire writing days (not split up by errands and appointments) and our meetings occur every other Thursday. So I had to ask myself, "Which is the more productive way to spend that time: writing, or talking about writing?"

The writing won out. I will still offer them feedback on their pages through email, but I'll have that precious chunk of time back. And my husband will get to see me outside of my office occasionally, which will be a plus for him. And once I have my full draft finished of Crow's Rest, I'll be back to darken their door.

What about you? Do you have any secrets to balancing your writing life and, well, a life?