The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: time management

  • The Art of Never Making Time: A Cautionary Excuse

    Most days, I don’t make time for writing.

    I can’t write fiction during the day. I mean, I can. Under the right circumstances, if its calm and I have a chunk of time to myself. I know, I know — write even if you only have five minutes, but its just not me, especially when I’m rewriting and I have to both read and write. So, most often, I write at night, after Miles has gone to bed.

    I have all these fantasies of kicking the nocturnal habit and being productive when Miles goes off to school. I could get my work done in half the time it takes now. I could spend the rest of the day being social and active and writing fiction. Maybe I’ll also bake all day and my house will be clean and I will be effortlessly gorgeous. You know what, its my fantasy, let me have it.

    Ashley & Miles
    I’ve lost feeling in my left side.

    I’ve now been writing this post for over an hour. 250 words, because I had to help Miles unlock the bathroom door, get his breakfast together, help him make some toast, make myself some coffee — and then there was a tantrum, which has lead to him clinging to my entire left side crying, “Mommy, I’m scared of the ghosts, I’m scared of the owls, I’m scared of the scary trees, I’m scared of the spooky animals outside!”

    Now he’s decided that we’re not friends and I need to go to my room because I won’t let him play with my coffee. When I’ve ignored that long enough — yup. Imaginary injury, right on schedule. Apparently a Backyardigan hurt his foot.

    (more…)

  • Escaping to Write

    I don’t make time to write. I make time to run . . . away.

    Lately that’s the only way I can get anything done.

    Like most of my still-waiting-to-become-career-novelist friends, every day is a balancing act between competing responsibilities. I work from home, I’m the primary care giver for my two children, and I really want to make this literary thing happen. Each of these areas has its own agenda, and rarely do they work in concert.

    In the past, I’ve done a decent job of compartmentalizing things. When the kids were home, I’d focus on their needs. But when the munchkins were at school, I’d divide my time between writing fiction, writing for work, and chores around the house. Lately, though, things have kind of fallen apart.

    (more…)

  • Time in a Bottle (Week of February 10)

    I'm afraid my desire to write is interfering with the time I spend drinking.The one thing that all writers wish they had more of is time. Whether finding time to write, or re-write, or edit… it always seems that deadlines are looming and there’s not enough minutes or hours in the day.

    We all want to spend time writing, but most writers have obligations. We have work, families, and some even try to cultivate that rare, exotic flower called “a life.” So, time management and prioritization are critical skills to have. But what is the key to success? Is it having time or making time?

    Here at the Cafe, we’ve asked our writers to give us their tips for carving out chunks of time. In turn, we hope they provide you with good advice to help you make — or find — the time you need to write.

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management

  • Where’s My TARDIS?

    Has there ever been something for you that can drown out the rest of the world? That can suddenly make deadlines and responsibilities seem unimportant? If you have, then you know how I feel about writing. When I get on a roll, nothing else seems to matter. This writing high is how I survived NaNo last year and how I plan on surviving it again. Okay. The writing high and a judicious application of coffee.

    There are many hard things about writing, finding the right words, editing, keeping it from becoming a cliché or something that’s already been written. But the hardest thing is to find time to write.

    It’s not that I can’t sit down and write in five minute spurts here and there. I can. But to truly become absorbed in the work I need hours, and that’s hard to plan time for. Squeezing in five minute spurts works… right up until that five minutes turned into thirty and I’m suddenly late for work. I would kill for a time turner or a TARDIS. (more…)

  • Time, You Ain’t No Friend of Mine

    I think most writers will tell you that the hardest thing about writing is simply finding time to do it. While I think we all love writing, otherwise we wouldn’t pursue it, there is always something else to do. One of the greatest things about this site is that it gives all of us an excuse to sit down and get into the writer’s mindset.

    There are so many other things that draw your attention. There is the five-year-old running around with Batman Legos showing off his newest rocket ship. There is a book, D.H. Lawrence’s novella “The Fox” which my professor demands I read and analyze. There is my wonderful girlfriend who is also trying to find time to write.

    After working all day away from your family, isolating yourself to write seems like the last thing you want to do. There are so few hours in a day, and so many things you need to do, or even want to do. In the end, you have to make choices. For some people, that means writing early in the morning or late at night. For others, it means prioritizing time. The important things come before writing, and the rest are pushed aside. (more…)

  • A Hole With No Bottom

    Ahahahahahaha.

    I only laugh because it hurts when I think about all the things I do when I ought to be writing. I’m terrible at task management. I tend to put things off until the last minute, or tell myself that I’m going to do one thing and then proceed to spend thirty minutes stalking that Ridiculously Photogenic Guy meme. (I was there when it was cool! I never get in on a meme until after it’s already lame, so that was a very exciting week for me.)

    The weird thing about posts like this, is that I’m sure in the preceding four days my fellow writers have cited legitimate reasons for not having time to write, and much more eloquently. So I’m going to go the immature little girl route: other things are cool, and writing is hard.

    I like to say that my work prevents me from spending as much time from writing as I’d like, but frankly I’m lying to us both. There are times, when I need to work more to make more money, where I don’t have time to do anything but work. But that is not my average day. My average day has tons of opportunities to write (and edit) in it, if only I were better at task management.

    These are the things I do, when I could be writing instead.

    (more…)