Out with the New, In with the Old…
April was the month that life sped up again. The month when I (and everyone else, I imagine) breathed a sigh of relief and said hello to my old life.
And then panicked. Because Old Life is NUTS.
Old Life is in-person school and o’dark-thirty alarms and packed lunches and buses. Old Life is five-a-week baseball practices and sometimes just as many games stretched out over two teams. Old Life is driving my daughter to and from work because she wasn’t able to get her permit in 2020. Old Life is four people with wildly different schedules and staggered dinner times and living on snacks that won’t melt in the car.
Here’s where things start to get real. Because now that life is returning to its old routines, I am struggling to find ways to keep incorporating all that was good about the New Normal into it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled at what’s coming -Hello family and friends! Goodbye Mascne!- but the return of deadlines and appointments and rush hour traffic is forcing me to flex my scheduling muscles in a way that reminds me how dormant they’ve become.
So how will I continue to write as I return to my Old Life? I’m not entirely sure yet, honestly. What I know is that I have to change up my habits and reacquaint myself with the idea of finite free time. Here are the three strategies I’ll be test-driving this month:
Smaller daily goals - I had some truly huge daily word counts during lock down (My most impressive was 11k). Now I’m looking to pursue more modest achievements. Enough to keep the momentum going, but nothing that will leave my keyboard (or my brain) smoking at the end.
Get back to my workouts - I do my best planning during lifting or when I’m running. Thinking about my book, or listening to an audio book helps me get through the workout and mentally prepares me for the time I sit down at my desk.
Take advantage of “found” time - Similar to writing sprints (butt-in-chair, words-on-page for short amounts of time), I am surprisingly productive in the 10-20 minutes I’m sitting in the carpool lane, or waiting for the oven timer. Of course, sometimes I use those moments to read or nap, but hey, self-care is important too.
I’ll let you know how it goes. By the way, this post is late because my family spent a wonderful long weekend in Charleston for a baseball tournament (4-0 for the weekend, Go Warriors!!) where I did no writing at all, but luxuriated in the long-awaited experience of traveling, exploring new places, and sharing time with family and friends (vaccinated, masked up, socially distant, but still, together). Merging the old and the new will be challenging, but I am so excited to have the opportunity to see how it all comes together.
April Wrap-up/Successes:
1. Writing: Finished editing SOMETHING BETTER in preparation for querying
2. Accepted into the WFWA Rising Star contest for unpublished women’s fiction
3. Accountability: Met with my mentor twice and revised my submission materials
4. Querying: Sent out my first batch of queries
5. Marketing: Social account followers: IG 534 (wooo!)/Twitter 412
6. Books read: 10 (2021 total: 30/60)
May Goals:
1. Writing: Write 300 words a day/5x week on WELCOME TO BLOOMS
2. Querying: Research, write, and send out 8 queries every 3 weeks (up to 6 months)
3. Accountability/Education: Continue meeting with my WFWA mentor, focused on learning what comes AFTER the contract
4. Marketing: Participate in #Kisspitch, a Twitter pitch event for unpublished romance and women’s fiction
Participate in the #wipsoundtrack2021 challenge, May 17-30 on IG
5. Books to read:
STARS OF ALABAMA by Sean Dietrich
IT STARTS WITH FOOD by Melissa Urban
SORRY I’M LATE, I DIDN”T WANT TO COME by Jessica Pan
ALL THINGS CEASE TO APPEAR by Elizabeth Brundage
THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE by Abi Dare
Drop me a line and let me know: How will you meld your New Normal and Old Life? Xoxo, y’all!