During my time as an author, I’ve come to discover something pretty cool.
Writers have a super power: we’re excellent jugglers.
The vast majority of us have at least one other thing we’re juggling alongside our writing time: family, full or part-time work, other hobbies and skills, or even multiple writing projects at once. We’re good at this juggling, even if it’s incredibly challenging at times. I’d even go so far as to say we LIKE being that busy. The demands on our time keep the brain on full-throttle and this can be great for creative endeavors.
Among friends and colleagues, I’m notorious for having trouble saying “no” to things and I have to constantly remind myself of this mantra: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I often get myself into a pickle because I tackle a project with gusto and don’t know how to do “just enough”. I want to nail it. Really bring home a win, even if it means spending way more time on something than I envisioned or than I need to. Often, though, I’m enjoying myself…until I realize I’m not. I’ve taken on too much, again. Next comes the stress, the lack of sleep, and the irritability or resentment.
After watching me go through this during one particularly brutal meltdown, my husband sat me down and gave me a talking to, and one thing he said really stuck with me, even now, years later. I keep coming back to it. His advice, amazingly, set me free in many ways. It helped me manage the load better and taught me how to listen to my own needs before bending over backwards to help others. I knew I had to share it with you all here at WU because we could all use some writerly hacks, amiright? Yet his golden piece of wisdom is so simple: [Read more…]
