Reading and Writing and Not Reading
As I was reviewing my year-end "books read" list last month, I determined that, in the period from late August to early November during which I was writing my Trek novel and racing my deadline, I was doing almost no recreational reading. I won't claim that I felt withdrawal pains in that period, but I did very much miss pleasure reading, and it felt really, really good when I finally did allow myself to just sit and relax with someone else's novel.
This gets me wondering... what am I doing wrong? Because I know that there are many other writers out there who are also voracious readers, and who don't seem to have any trouble turning out a couple of novels or a slew of shorter stories each a year while also reading and writing book reviews and blurbs, and in some cases, also holding down day jobs, having healthy social lives (whatever THAT is), and/or raising children. Am I just that horrible at time management? Or did I just psych myself out worrying about my deadline (which I still missed by 10 days), and end up compounding the stress I was feeling by refusing to take the time to read a chapter a day of something else?
This gets me wondering... what am I doing wrong? Because I know that there are many other writers out there who are also voracious readers, and who don't seem to have any trouble turning out a couple of novels or a slew of shorter stories each a year while also reading and writing book reviews and blurbs, and in some cases, also holding down day jobs, having healthy social lives (whatever THAT is), and/or raising children. Am I just that horrible at time management? Or did I just psych myself out worrying about my deadline (which I still missed by 10 days), and end up compounding the stress I was feeling by refusing to take the time to read a chapter a day of something else?