Calgon, Take Me Away!

So today, after the second person nagged at me about doing this plotting exercise (Isaiah) instead of "finishing what you've already started" - and I almost bit their head off about it - I got to thinking.

I'm currently juggling six seperate jobs, though only three of them pay anything at the moment. Writing is one of them. But after I've spent all day focused on my other jobs, pounding out the stuff I have to do, I need writing to be a bit more of a fun time right now. And it's not like this project is completely self-indulgent - I am hoping to learn quite a bit from it. I'm almost done with my current freelance web design project and with my current software configuration project, and once those are over (provided I'm not too stressed over being broke to deal with anything else) I'll likely have a bit more energy for headway on my works in progress.

Until then I'm happy with escapism, thank you very much.

Changing Rhythms

Well, I did okay on Story-A-Day for awhile - by the 12th I'd got six stories done and a couple more started - but then I burned out. That's still more short stories than I've written in the past decade, though. :) Despite feeling creatively exhausted by the end, I think it was worth it.

I had two realisations about my writing, though. The first was that I'm trying to balance three full-time things - work, writing and the farm - and I really only have time for two. This was depressing. Then I realised that wasn't exactly correct. The farm work is seasonal (and right now is the busiest time of year) and so my writing needs to be, too. In April and May, and then again in October and November, I need to focus on the homestead and let my writing kind of take a back seat. The rest of the year the property and stock only need basic maintenance and I can spend more time on my writing. I think I can be happy with that kind of seasonal flux.

I'm going to Baycon this weekend with M--------. I'm really looking forward to the mini-vacation, and to some of the fascinating panels they have, many of which are specifically about creating fantasy and science fiction.

Progress

I haven't done any writing today, but I did manage to apply for unemployment payments, so I should hopefully be able to pay my rent for awhile. I also may be able to work freelance for a bit, which would give me more writing time. And yesterday, in addition to getting laid off, I managed to finally get E&L to a point where I can really start writing it and got 897 words written. It's a start.

So Much for My Writing Schedule

So today I got the news that my hours at work will be reduced to nothing and I need to find a new job. Things could be worse - I shouldn't have to worry about money too much while I job-hunt - but I'm a bit worried about my writing goals.

With this job I worked part-time, flexible hours at home. I somehow doubt that I'll be able to find another situation like that. Once I'm working full-time and commuting, finding the time and energy to write is going to be a lot harder. Right now I'm scheduled to write 20 hours a week and I've been managing to be productive about 10 - 15 of those hours. I'm kind of scared to do the calculation of how much time I'll have to write once I'm out of the house 60 hours a week or so.