No Comparison!

Is it really Thursday already? Where did the week go? What do I have to show for it?

I've always been fairly good at time management, but lately I feel that my accomplishments don't measure up. Yes, I have a full time job (and yes, this was the first week of a new term, always crazy), but some of my author colleagues not only hold down jobs but also take care of kids. They still manage to put out a new book every couple of months. What is wrong with me?

Where does my time go? I don't watch television - at all. I do spend a lot of time with my husband, handle the usual shopping and cooking, and so on. Plus I really need a solid eight hours of sleep a night. Sometimes it seems as though I should be able to do more.

One writer friend of mine has three children, two of the autistic. She apologized for not answering my email within twenty four hours. Lady, no apologies are required. I'm in awe of you.

When I start thinking this way, I just have to grab myself by the collar and yell, "Stop!" Comparisons like this are not helpful. They're not motivating, they're depressing. In fact comparing myself to others reduces rather than improves my productivity, because I'm wasting time on beating myself up, when I might be writing, or reading student papers, or working on a project proposal, or doing something else worthwhile.

Worrying and self-castigation are rarely useful. Each of us is an individual, with different lives, different skills, different levels of energy. Comparing myself to another author is like an elephant wishing she were a tiger. I should focus on doing the best that I personally can do.

Now, back to work!

NaNoWriMo - Well, Not Exactly!

It's November, and as many an author can tell you, November is National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo" for short. NaNoWriMo is a challenge, a movement, a community, and more. You can read about its history in Wikipedia, but basically, when you participate in NaNoWriMo, you make an attempt to write at least 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1st and November 30th.

You're allowed to plan, working on characters, plot and so on, before the start of November, and of course you're allowed (expected) to spend time after November revising and polishing the book. During November, you just write. The objective is to force you to produce, to write on a regular basis, and to avoid the trap of working and reworking the same prose, over and over, rather than making progress toward completing your work.

Lots of my writer friends are "doing NaNo" this year. I feel a bit left out. However, I know better than to sign on to NaNoWriMo myself. I could do it - that's less than 2000 words per day, and I can easily produce 3-4K on the days I write. The problem is I can't write every day. There are too many other things going on in my life that I have to attend to. If I committed to NaNo, though, I'd force myself, thereby doing violence to both my peace of mind and my relationship with my husband (who respects my writing but also views it as less important than making a serious living).

I have made a NaNo commitment to myself, though. During November, I'm going to finish the first draft of my M/M speculative fiction erotic romance Quarantine. I've been working on this book for more than a year. The trouble is, I haven't been working steadily. There have been whole months when I haven't written a word because I had to give other writing projects priority. Well, this month, I'm going to clear that guilt away!

I have, I estimate, about 20K left to go. I wrote 4K yesterday. If I could do that every day...

I'm not going to dwell on my failures! Today I had other matters I had to deal with. I'll go back to it tomorrow...

Meanwhile, I hope that making my commitment public will help me to fulfill it. Because I know I have readers waiting for this book. All I need to do is get it done!