Back next week. If you're looking for something to read in the meantime, feel free to pick up one of the books you see at the right :-)
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Strangers on a Train
As a regular commuter, there are friends you make along the way, compatriots of a sort. And then there are times when you ride with a car filled with people you've not seen or met before. Sometimes it's nice to chat, sometimes I spend the time catching up on reading and sometimes it's nice to listen to my iPod.
Last night, I didn't see one person I normally encounter on my ride home, and proceeded to play games on my iPad to kill the long ride home. As I neared my stop, I moved from the upper berth to the lower (my stop is near the end of the line, and by the time I'm close, the lower berth has cleared considerably). Sitting closer to the doors, a man came and sat near me and started to talk. He told me he was training for a marathon and showed me his "necklace," a medal which was somewhat battered. My impression of the man was that he wasn't quite on the same path as the rest of us. A man of color who was blind in one eye and wearing tattered clothes, he went on to tell me his training ritual and told me I should run a marathon.
Something about me - I don't run. I DO participate in 5K races and normally walk (very fast). I did one 5K with my son during which I ran part of the way, but I still wasn't going to break any speed records. I can't get the breathing down and I'm not as young as I used to be (there are physical limitations I didn't have when I was younger).
Anyway, I shared with this man that I participated in 5Ks and he asked if I'd won. Ha Ha! Nope. And then he told me how I should be training. How I should train for a marathon. That I should lose some weight! Imagine a complete stranger telling me how to live my life! No, I wasn't offended. He doesn't know me any better than I know him. I don't know his life's journey any more than he knows mine. It was a pleasant, ten minute conversation at the end of the run.
Most people hide behind their iPod or their computers or some other means of personal entertainment while they ride the train. I'm guilty of that some of the time as well. As a "not highly social" sort, I'm not always comfortable talking to strangers, and yet there are days I enjoy a little conversation to make the ride go by faster. It's an interesting insight into different personalities, some of them very like your own and some of them very different.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Work Life Balance
Or maybe the title should actually be work/work balance. With a little life thrown in.
No, I'm not going to whine. I'm grateful to have a day job. Some day I would love for this author gig to be the day job, but that isn't the way it works. At least not yet.
The downside to the day job is that there are a few months each year where it gears up, requiring significantly more hours. That would be now. March Madness (as you may have seen in prior year posts). It isn't just for basketball. While that's excellent for the business for which I work, it is difficult for those of us employed there. We go from a 40-hour work week to 60+. Just this morning, when I signed on at {yawn} 6:00 a.m., I had an email from someone that was sent last night after midnight. I replied to the email and was stunned to get a response almost immediately. To which I replied (again), "you haven't been up all night, have you?" He assured me that he had managed to get some sleep between those emails, but it isn't unusual for these guys to work well past midnight. What is unusual is seeing them back in the office before 9:00 a.m.
These hours tend to block the creative process a bit. Focus has to remain sharp on the work at hand, and with the day job demanding more attention, that leaves less room for independent thought and creativity.
At this time I would like to give a shout out to Beverly Long. I sat with her for lunch at the last Chicago Spring Fling Writer's Conference and we commiserated over long hours at the day job, but let me tell you about Beverly. She was under contract to deliver three books that year. Count them. Three. I asked her how she managed to accomplish that in addition to working a 9-5 (and often longer than 9-5) day job. Her answer? she had two of them essentially completed, so it amounted to finishing editing on #2, and working on #3. And, she added, she didn't watch much television. She's my hero! Last year I managed to complete two books, and I thought that was a challenge!
So what does one do during peak periods like this? First, I have to manage my stress levels. That means eliminating things that are not absolutely essential. As much as my writing is an essential part of who I am, for the month of March in particular, I have to devote my attention to the day job. Until you guys make me a best-selling author, there is no alternative to this.
Will try to keep blogging. In the meantime - Back to work.
No, I'm not going to whine. I'm grateful to have a day job. Some day I would love for this author gig to be the day job, but that isn't the way it works. At least not yet.
The downside to the day job is that there are a few months each year where it gears up, requiring significantly more hours. That would be now. March Madness (as you may have seen in prior year posts). It isn't just for basketball. While that's excellent for the business for which I work, it is difficult for those of us employed there. We go from a 40-hour work week to 60+. Just this morning, when I signed on at {yawn} 6:00 a.m., I had an email from someone that was sent last night after midnight. I replied to the email and was stunned to get a response almost immediately. To which I replied (again), "you haven't been up all night, have you?" He assured me that he had managed to get some sleep between those emails, but it isn't unusual for these guys to work well past midnight. What is unusual is seeing them back in the office before 9:00 a.m.
These hours tend to block the creative process a bit. Focus has to remain sharp on the work at hand, and with the day job demanding more attention, that leaves less room for independent thought and creativity.
At this time I would like to give a shout out to Beverly Long. I sat with her for lunch at the last Chicago Spring Fling Writer's Conference and we commiserated over long hours at the day job, but let me tell you about Beverly. She was under contract to deliver three books that year. Count them. Three. I asked her how she managed to accomplish that in addition to working a 9-5 (and often longer than 9-5) day job. Her answer? she had two of them essentially completed, so it amounted to finishing editing on #2, and working on #3. And, she added, she didn't watch much television. She's my hero! Last year I managed to complete two books, and I thought that was a challenge!
So what does one do during peak periods like this? First, I have to manage my stress levels. That means eliminating things that are not absolutely essential. As much as my writing is an essential part of who I am, for the month of March in particular, I have to devote my attention to the day job. Until you guys make me a best-selling author, there is no alternative to this.
Will try to keep blogging. In the meantime - Back to work.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Read an EBook Week
My friends over at Smashwords are hosting their annual "Read an EBook week." It's a great place to find a new favorite book! Many books are offered at a deep discount (including my own).At the day job, we have completed the first deadline. Yay! This is the busiest time of year for me there, and often interferes with quality writing time as my day job hours extend beyond a normal workday. Now we go into March Madness. The February deadline kicks it off and we go non-stop all the way through March with the final deadline at the end of April - just in time for my next writer's conference. So life is humming along at a fast pace right now.
And here's an upside to the wacky weather - being this busy makes it less of an issue that mother nature is still playing games with the thermometer and the precipitation. I don't mind not being able to play outside quite so much when it's zero and below with inches and inches and inches of snow. Anyone else ready for a little green? Some budding trees? {raising my hand}
Stop over at Smashwords and check out some new books, or follow the link "to buy other ebook readers" on the right. Please note that they have an "adult content" filter. Some of my books fall under that category and aren't visible unless you turn off the filter.
Back to work for me.
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