Time Struggles

           About two weeks ago, I wrote about my writing dilemma and how I was going to take a week off with family and pray about my situation.  Our week away was wonderful.  I loved not checking in on the computer, researching, and hitting deadlines.  I enjoyed it so much that for this last week with a mushy vacation brain, I have been avoiding the situation all together.  I started painting the living room instead of working on writing.  Now granted, the living room needed painting very badly and I have relatives coming for a 1^st Communion celebration at the beginning of May.  They will return for the graduation celebration; plus, more people coming, so the painting is a necessity.  I think of all that has to be done to prepare for both events and my oldest leaving the day after graduation for military training and then he goes straight on to college.  I am overwhelmed.  Writing is the furthest thing from my thoughts.

While praying about my writing, I found an answer.  It is the same answer I hear when I put myself in this panic mode, but it is one I don’t like.  While I was in college the third time, I worked three jobs, carried 16 credits, and carved time out for my husband and son which entailed going home for weekends or them coming to me.  I was attending a college four hours from the town we lived in at the time.  Hum, if I could do all that, why do I question how to do my writing?  Yes I am older with more volunteer time for my kids’ activities, but I still have quite a few hours in the day to work with.

I need to start scheduling my days as if I am in college.  Basically I have five classes.  They are Editing Short Stories, Editing Pursuing Destiny, Writing Hypnotize the Moon, Publishing Communications, and Researching a Saint.  Oh, I probably need to add a short weekly seminar to write my blog.  Geez, writing this just scares me especially with all the celebrations coming up.  It sounds so doable in my head, but writing it seems so overwhelming.  I need to keep praying.

There is a saying I ran across in my studies of writing.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  They applied this to writing a novel.  How do you write a novel?  One word at a time.  I have to say though, writing the novel wasn’t that bad.  The tough part is to sell it while trying to get other work sold and still writing.  I really wonder if any of it is worth it.  Maybe I should just bag the whole thing and concentrate on the hobbies I love to do around the house.  Is writing part of my journey to holiness?  My heart keeps crying, “yes, yes it is.”

Yesterday I wrote up a schedule with all my writing activities scheduled.  I successfully worked on Pursuing Destiny and Hypnotize the Moon, but I didn’t touch any of the other things.  I am not feeling so bad about that because these first two things are what need to be done for the conference in August.  Today I am off my schedule.  I should be doing some housework and exercising, but I thought I would work on the blog seminar first.  I can get that other done later on in the afternoon.

Are you struggling with time management?  How do you overcome all the obstacles?
Blessings to you all.