On time management

[girliejones]

I'm practising efficiency by admitting I am sick today and spending it in bed. I''m actually about to shut down the laptop and do the thing you do when you are really sick - watch crappy TV.

So here is a great link via @tansyrr on Twitter for advice on time management. I have to admit that after running ASif for 5 years and working at indie press

Comments

[callistra]

:-)
Hmmm, Universe says "Time to get your A into G, Calli!"

[callistra]

Heh, I understand! But really, it's stuff we should be listening to. It doesn't make it any more palatable!
:D

[girliejones]

Do it or don't do it ... there is no try :)

[cassiphone]

I agree with you very much

[girliejones]

For me, I sit at a completely different place on the process train, and it's made me realise that I don't actually care much about the writing process. As a publisher, I care about what I will have to publish this year, and next, I care about the finished product. I have to find work that I want to buy and that work will be chosen from finished pieces that get submitted. So in truth when I watch writers blog or talk about their progress, I'm weighing up how likely it is that I will see anything to consider. For me, that's the endgame.

And like you and like the blog post I linked to says, if you want it, then you will go get it. It might be at a slower pace than a writer with a full time job as a writer, but it IS amazing how much you can get done when you have to beg, borrow and steal some time for your own to write/work in.

[cassiphone]

Oh absolutely as a publisher you shouldn't have to worry about the private lives of writers

[girliejones]

It's true and it's not my job to feel sorry for the writer for the work or time that's gone into something. My main objective is to assess the quality of the product. So for me, I am concerned with being sured that there is a product to assess - that's one thing I do, rustle up work - and then look at the quality of it. So I am more concerned about getting a lot of finished work in so that I can find work amongst that to publish.

New writers often contact me for advice. And really, if you're not writing, or you can't get to it cause of the kids, the advice is ... write. And the advice is always *write*. It's the number task for making a sale - having something to sell.

Wanting

[ext_231444]

I think, Robert Henri sums it up in "The Art Spirit". I actually read the quote though in my favourite novel "My Name Is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok, in itself a great book for anyone involved in art:

"You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you."

My writing is a daily habit. I can go a day without it, or a few. But more than that and I get this kind of sense that I'm not being me. I feel like this despite the fact that so much of my work will never be seen by anyone other than friends.