Writer's Life: Juggling Fails (And Recovery) (Kimberly)

How many balls can you juggle in your life? How do you recover when you inevitably drop one or more?

Most, if not all, writers are juggling multiple balls every day. You have these brightly colored balls labeled neatly with Writing, Editing, Research, Publishing, Marketing. Those are just the balls related to the writing side of life. Then you add in the balls labeled Exercise, Social Life, Family, Work, Illness, and everything else that makes up Life. And it is a lot for anyone to keep all those balls in the air all the time. Inevitably, each and every one of us is going to drop one or more of them.

Last May I wrote about living with a chronic illness and how that impacts my writing life. I described flares as periods of time when the symptoms take on acute and constant pain directly impacting and interfering with navigating life due to your energy being sapped. The same energy we use to get through each day juggling as many balls as possible. I've been caught in a severe flare of my chronic illness for the last five months and I'm still working on recovery. This means I've dropped a number of balls, including the fact that I have not completely finished and published a new book in five months.

Juggling fails are not fun. They are often discouraging and can make you question why you're trying to juggle at all. That's okay. You are allowed to feel disappointed when you drop those balls. Sometimes you have to drop a ball or two in order to recover and start again. Even when I haven't been able to write, I have been researching and refueling through reading and watching genre specific movies/TV shows. They're not the primary balls I wanted to be juggling, but they were the ones I could handle even in the middle of a very bad flare.

When you have a juggling fail, what matters most is you do not let that fail convince you to quit. There are writers in all walks and stages of life, from busy moms to full-time workers/part-time writers to chronic illness warriors, who have shared their writing successes no matter what they're juggling. One of the biggest defining factors in their success was their perseverance. They chose to pick up the dropped balls and try again. They chose not to quit.

There will always be times in life when you experience juggling fails for one reason or another. Sometimes the solution is to take a hard look at everything you're juggling and choose which balls are going to be your priority for this season. Choose a different set to put aside for now in order to pick back up the Writing, Editing, and Publishing balls. Juggling is about balance and timing. Recovering from our juggling fails requires our willingness to shuffle priorities at times and, most of all, our willingness to keep trying. If you've dropped a couple of balls (or more), it is not a loss. It's merely an opportunity to reassess, readjust, and try again.

Keep juggling and persevering!

Kimberly A. Rogers

Balancing Baskets (Laurie)

It may not be obvious from the title, but my post today was inspired by the idea to "not put all your eggs in one basket." A little over a year ago, I signed my first publishing contract. As I navigated the new waters of publication, I also made efforts to increase my social media presence as an author, plus I was busy working on what I planned to be book 2 in my Tales of the Mystics series. Soon I tacked on a short story, then another short story, then a novella. And more marketing.

For a while, it was great. I felt so productive, and I had clearly found my "thing." I was juggling being an author and a stay-at-home mom, so how could I possibly have time for anything else? But eventually that mentality started to have a negative effect. Every spare moment that wasn't devoted to my family needed to go to something writing-related. If it didn't, I was wasting precious time. I placed huge importance on every marketing effort, and I got frustrated that even with dedicating as much time as I could to authorly activities, many others seemed to be doing so much more.

Does this sound unhealthy to you? It took a while, but finally I noticed how unbalanced my life had become. Sure, I was getting a lot done, but I wasn't getting enough sleep, I was feeling stressed and anxious a lot of the time, and I was having trouble enjoying any time spent relaxing, even when I was with my husband and sons.

So at the craziest possible time, in the midst of gearing up for my debut novel to release, I took a step back. I convinced myself that trimming down to two weekly posts on my author Facebook page would be sufficient. I allowed myself to take a break from writing new material and participating in my critique group when I had a long list of tasks to accomplish related to my blog tour and other marketing efforts. I refrained from signing up for every guest blogging opportunity I saw. I even joined a choir at my church.

And I'm so much happier for it! Some people can live and breathe writing, or whatever their chosen occupation happens to be, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I can't, and I need to accept that about myself. I hope writing and related author activities will be an important part of my life for many, many years to come, but it's not MY LIFE. Finding a better balance has helped me separate myself from my work a bit, which has resulted in less stress, more quality time with my family, and less concern about things like social media reach and negative reviews. I still stay up way too late many nights, and I still worry sometimes that I'm not doing enough, either in my writing life or everything outside it, but it's progress :)


How about you? Have you struggled to find balance in some aspect of your life? Do you have any tips for those of us who want to "do it all!" without being stressed?


Thanks for reading!
Laurie