Finding balance in the writing life

Hourglass
Image source: Wikimedia Commons

 When you’re writing a novel, there’s a tendency to want to immerse yourself in the work of writing a novel. But, in this modern age, with blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and who knows what else, it’s hard to find time to do it all.

So, the question is, how does one find balance, and still get stuff done? I mean, social media is increasingly important, but if you’re an author, you want to write books.

I’m still working on finding the happy medium–and I must admit, that is easier to find on days I don’t have to grocery shop, clean the house, go to doctor’s or dentist’s appointment (had one doc and dentist appointment this week as well as shopping and play dates to take my kids to and meetings). And if you work full time, too, yikes! But, it’s clear I’m not alone in trying to figure out that happy medium between saying yes to the things you need to and saying no to the things you really just can’t do, and still having time for life.

Here’s a great article by Tina Fey about saying “yes” to opportunities in life. And another great article from the New York Times on how giving to others ultimately brings you success. Both these tilt toward doing more, but then there’s another article on the fact that some of the most successful artists got that way by saying no to things that didn’t involved their art.

So, do you have a formula for success, for what’s the right thing to say yes to, and what you just put on hold so you can write?

That’s it for today. Have to write a blog for kick off dystopia month on another site.

Catch you on the flip side! 🙂

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