Some Strangeness of Being An Author

As many of you know, I love being an author. I love writing, editing, designing, publishing. All of it. I also love my job. I love my family. I love a zillion other things that take my time and attention. 

Today, I wanted to talk about some of the strangeness that comes with being an author with a job, a family, and other interests.

I've written before on this blog responding to the endless question "How do you do it?" As in, "How do you do it with such little time on your hands and so many other things that life throws at you?" My simple and most accurate answer I always respond with is, "I'm really good with time management."

And I am. I have to be. 

I've recently started really pushing myself when it comes to my writing. I am working to produce more work in a year, more consistently publish, and I've also started to push myself to support other authors in their publishing endeavors with AzuresStar Press. All of this takes time. 

So does my job as a reading intervention specialist, which I absolutely adore. There's not a day that I go on site or work at the clinic that I don't feel a deep sense of pride for what I do. 

So does being a mom. Truly, there's not a day or an hour that I get to spend with my son that I don't love - though of course there are tricky moments - and that I don't wish I had more time with him. 

Okay. It may seem like I'm rambling, but that's kind of the point of this post. All of these things take up time and space in my brain. I'm passionate about all of it. And the number one way I'm able to attend to each of these things - and others - is to be very good with my time management, and be very aware of where my time and attention go. 

For example, I don't scroll on social media. Ever. When I am on social media, I check my feeds for content from people I support or for ideas, etc., it's always in a mindful, time-efficient way, and I VERY rarely stay online for more than about five minutes. I have a specific amount of time and a specific strategy for creating content for marketing, and it's done on the same days at the same times every week, almost always. 

I schedule in my writing, editing, and publishing duties into a window where I am neither working nor with my son (typically after he goes to bed), when my husband is having his downtime. I write, he plays games or does homework (depending on what our life looks like at the time), and we just sit together. And I always have a strategy in place to keep myself as productive as possible in this limited window.

On Tuesdays, I set aside half an hour to an hour to update all of my publishing things. I use this time to track book sales, make adjustments to my website, make phone calls to schedule events, etc. On the weekends, I take a little bit of time aside to prep my social media for the week and write out my blog posts.

Anyway. I'm very aware of my time, effort, and attention. That's not to say I robotically schedule out every minute of my time, or that I don't ever get to do anything fun. I still love to read and watch movies, I still go on walks when I can, I take vacations, and I still make time every Friday night to watch a scary movie with my husband. 

What I wanted to write about today is that the strangest thing about being an author with a job and a family is... I kind of always feel a little bit guilty when I get this question. To me, it feels like narrowed eyes, analytical glares, as if the person asking is really saying, "There's no way you can do all of this the way you say you do,"  or "There's no way you're really putting in as much attention to your job or your family as you say you are."

Maybe that's just me. Maybe that's just the guilty feeling I get for having so many interests. But a look at my schedule will definitely confirm the same thing I always tell people: I just pay very close attention to my time. 

Do you have anything like this that comes with what you do? Leave a comment or send me an email. I'd love to know!