By Jan S. Gephardt

Call me irresponsible if you will, but I spent the day writing.

Writing fiction, that is, not a blog post. Even though it was “Blog-or-Die Day.” Even though I had scheduled and set aside time to work on a blog post. Yes, even though I hate, hate, hate missing deadlines. The journalist/commercial graphic designer in me detests missing deadlines.

But instead of blogging like I was supposed to, I spent this week’s designated blogging day writing fiction. Specifically, I spent it finishing a brand-new short story set in the universe of the XK9s. Call me irresponsible, but I’d do the same thing again, if I had this day to do over. The story had to come out. Now.

Order versus Chaos

I sometimes see the struggle to use my time well as a balancing act between order and chaos. As someone with a small creative business, there are certain things that I must do regularly, in a systematic and orderly way. But there are other activities it’s harder to stuff into an orderly time slot.

Each week, I need a Plan/Review Day. For me, that’s Monday. Long and bitter experience has taught me that I must stop regularly to take stock, to check my progress. I ask, “What did I plan to do? Did I get it done? All or some? What contributed to my success? What kept me from meeting my goals?”

I’ve learned that if I don’t do this every week, I never get my bookkeeping done. I miss deadlines. And I spend a lot of time wondering what I did with all that time, since I “didn’t accomplish a darn thing.” Even if I actually accomplished a lot. I’m really good at forgetting or downplaying things I did. And also at mourning grandiose dreams that didn’t turn out the way I envisioned them.

“Blog-Or-Die” Day

My small creative business requires other kinds of orderly, regular, systematic days. I already mentioned Blog-or-Die Day, which is Tuesday (or else). If I don’t write and/or produce a blog post on Tuesdays, my blog will be off-schedule. It might not even happen at all. So, you don’t have to call me irresponsible if I miss Blog Day. I’ll call it that way myself.

But so what if I miss a Blog Day, you might ask (some days I do, too). Well, a regularly-updated blog on one’s own website provides ever-renewing material. Even during the long “pregnant” periods between the publications of my books, stuff is happening on my website. I have subscribers, with whom I feel I’ve made a kind of pact: I’ll write about my creative journey, and they can ride along with me. It could be fun! Better yet, it can become a creative conversation.

For the past year and more, It’s become an expanded conversation, with my sister G. S. Norwood added to the mix. She brings things to the blog that I can’t, such as her depth of knowledge about music or her unique take on books or history. It’s worth doing. But it won’t happen by itself.

Even if I don’t write the material for that week, I format and illustrate it, which takes a good bit of time in itself. When I observe a weekly Blog Day, I make enough time (usually) for that important blog post each week.

Marketing Day

Especially since G. and I formed Weird Sisters Publishing and started producing books, there is always marketing to do. Some of ours is paid advertising. Some of it is appearances at readings or science fiction conventions, social media, or other things. But all of it must be strategized, planned out on a tactical level, executed, and then the results must be measured. For me, Wednesday is Marketing Day. The rest of the week I focus elsewhere, but on this one day I review as many of our promotional efforts as possible.

For instance, only on Wednesdays do I allow myself to look at the Estimated Royalties from Amazon. I know some authors check it daily (or even hourly), but that can quickly drive a person around the bend. It also can devour massive amounts of time. Only on Wednesdays doI check to see how pre-orders are accumulating. As I write this, the accumulating number of pre-orders for A Bone to Pick is a “high-interest topic” for me. But looking at it more often won’t change the numbers.

I do those and other tasks every week. I do others once a month, such as analytics on particular ad campaigns, keyword list-building efforts, or writing my monthly newsletter. If I didn’t regularly do these things each month during a designated time, some of them might never get done at all. You would definitely need to call me irresponsible if I didn’t hit all of these marks in a regular, systematic way.

Random Variables

But I can only stand to slot myself into orderly, prescribed, (and often statistics-based) activities for so long. Pretty soon, you’re gonna have to pry my fingernails out of the ceiling if I do too much of that.

My heart’s desire, and the thing I’ve so loved doing as much as possible since I stopped needing to work outside the home, is the creative work.

Sometimes it’s artwork, sometimes it’s writing fiction, and oftentimes it’s a blend of both. It’s been about a month since I finally wrote “THE END” on the manuscript for A Bone to Pick and sent it off to the proofreader. Since then I’ve slotted myself into more “production days” (to get the book ready for publication). I’ve also started working in earnest on development for the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy’s third and final installment, Bone of Contention, but mostly by thinking about it, rather than writing.

But fiction-writing is an uneven process. For me, it’s also a discovery process. And one of the things I discovered as I worked on the developmental phase of Bone of Contention was that I had another story to write first. I needed to know more aboutwhat happened during an incident that’s obliquely mentioned in The Other Side of Fear and may be briefly revisited in Bone of Contention.

The Story Digs in its Claws

I didn’t think I’d write it as “share-with-the-public story” at first. It started out as a background sketch. But sometimes a story takes on a life of its own. Things began to fall into place. And the more they did, the more I wanted to write it in a more complete form. As something I could share.

I’ve been working on it sporadically for about four weeks at this point. I’d go for a while, hit a snag, set it aside and do something else (there’s always stuff to do), and pretty soon I’d be back at work on it.

Then, toward the end of last week, it dug its claws in real deep. I schedule regular writing times each day, but it was a greedy baby story. It wanted all of my time. All of my attention. Call me irresponsible, but I gave in.

“I haven’t been on social media for a while,” I’d say to myself. “I ought to check in and catch up.” But I’d find myself writing instead. “I should check my email,” I’d tell myself. “Okay, but I’ll work on the story first.” Hours later, I’d still be writing. I’m almost afraid to check my inboxes at this point.

Call me Irresponsible

Yeah, yeah, I know. It is really rude to ignore my emails. And I had a whole different blog topic I was going to tackle this week—one that involved research and analysis and . . . never mind. I intended to work on the post last night.

I wrote the story instead.

And then I seriously needed to work on the blog post . . . um, at this point, that was all day yesterday.

I wrote the story instead.

It didn’t want to let go. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over decades of fiction-writing, it’s don’t put it off if it’s flowing, because you may never get exactly that flow back again. And seriously, what is my current job-description? (Hint: “blogger” is an “also” that’s several notches down on the list.).

So, call me irresponsible, but I spent every bit of Blog-or-Die Day this week on the story. I now have a first complete draft of a 6,500-some-odd-word story that I’m currently calling Beautiful New Year. It’s not done, of course. A lot of sharpening, focusing and listening to critiques lies ahead. But I finished the first draft. That’s a milestone.

And, whoops! Would you look at that? Somehow* I managed to finish a blog post, too.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Double thanks to Quotefancy, which provided both the William Faulkner quote about stories that need to come out, and the quote about chaos from Ameila Atwater-Rhodes. I really appreciate it! My gratitude also goes to Jory MacKay’s post on the Rescue Time Blog for the quote from Henry David Thoreau, and to Chad Brockius on Be Yourself via Medium, for the Edmund Burke quote.

I deeply appreciate the graphic on “How to support your friend’s small business,” from Adria Adams Co., via Sparksight on Twitter, the “Time to write a story” quote/image by Jade Abaya on Twitter, and QuotesWiki for the “First Drafts” quote. Many thanks to all of you!

* = “by not sleeping much and posting late”