Tag: writing schedule

Time Management

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Time management…where what often happens is my time manages me.

analog clock

That’s something I’m working on, but I’m neurodivergent (I haven’t been formally diagnosed with anything, but multiple medical/mental health professionals have said that I am almost definitely autistic, along with living with Complex PTSD which also affects how my brain functions). There are numerous factors that go into my relationship with time and accomplishing things, and some of those factors fluctuate day by day. For example, I have fibromyalgia. If it’s a higher-than-typical pain day, more of my mental bandwidth goes into just being capable of things like preparing a meal or walking to the bathroom; I don’t have anything left over to focus on writing a story or doing paperwork or whatever was on that day’s agenda. If it’s a day I’m scheduled to work at the daycare center where I’ve just taken on a one-day-a-week gig, I have to get up at 4am and probably won’t be able to concentrate on anything by the time I get home at 4pm. (To clarify: I’m not working a 12-hour shift. I get up at 4 because I prefer to have time to ease into the day rather than getting up and immediately rushing out of the house; I leave a little before 7 and have to fight city-area rush hour traffic to get to the center by 8. I leave work at 3 and then have to fight the beginning of afternoon rush-hour traffic to get home.)

In addition to the “do I have the bandwidth today” thing, I also have some issues with executive functioning. I might have a task in mind but not be able to sort out where to start (e.g. do I make the spreadsheet first, or look up the info that goes on the spreadsheet and write it down and then make the spreadsheet, or…), which isn’t a case of “just figuring it out” or “making a decision,” it’s literally my brain being unable to put multiple steps of a process into the most logical and efficient order.  That difficulty also crops up when it comes to determining which task of the several on my list should be done first. I do have a daily “task list” (I hate calling it a “to-do list” because then I feel crappy if I don’t get everything done), but I’ve found that trying to schedule the tasks at certain times of day leads to a further break-down of brain cooperation because I start feeling trapped, which pings one of my CPTSD buttons and can even trigger a full-on PTSD flashback/panic attack. But *not* scheduling the tasks sometimes leads to me spending 5-10 minutes just staring at the day’s list trying to decide what to do first.

This is becoming more of an issue for me because I’ve added things to my figurative plate. I’m still trying to write, though my writing brain seems to be on a bit of a break (I’ve done a couple of short stories recently and hope to start working on another novel by the end of the month). I’m promoting the books I’ve already released. As noted, I’ve started working one day a week at a daycare, and that might not be the *same* day every week; they’ve said they’ll try to let me know the week before which day they’ll want me the following week. I’m looking into going back to school for a Master’s degree in social work or mental health counseling, and yes, I am aware that going back to school with my particular combination of mental and physical health issues along with the neurodivergence and associated executive dysfunction might be a recipe for frustration, if not disaster; meanwhile, I’m trying to organize myself and my time to allow for researching different schools and their requirements and then actually completing the application processes for the schools I choose. (I’ll worry about how to manage the program itself once I’ve applied and been accepted and figured out how to finance it…)

A lot of times when I talk about trying to organize my time and tasks, I get advice like “Use a planner!” or “Just figure it out!” or “If you really wanted to do these things, you wouldn’t be having such a hard time.” None of which is helpful, and none of which even remotely acknowledges that executive dysfunction and physical or mental health conditions are not a CHOICE. I didn’t choose to be repeatedly and relentlessly traumatized at home and in other settings from pretty much birth until my mid-30s. I didn’t choose to be born to two neurodivergent parents (neurodiversity often has a genetic component). I don’t choose to feel trapped and panicky when I try to follow an intensely structured schedule, and I don’t choose to have a messed-up memory that sometimes results in me not even remembering to write things in a planner, let alone look in the planner to follow the plans. I definitely don’t choose to be unable to figure out how to sequence the steps of a process or to take longer to sequence the steps than it ultimately takes to complete the task itself…

Over the years, I’ve learned some accommodations and routines that help, but none of the issues I deal with are choices. I’ve also learned to give myself compassion and make allowances for the things that are genuinely outside of my control.

“I Don’t Know What to Write!”

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Sometimes my brain just doesn’t want to cooperate with writing anything. It’s frustrating to me when this happens, because a decade or so ago, when I was writing and publishing frequently, I had *too many* ideas. But now, sometimes my mind just goes completely blank and I can’t think of anything to write at all.

It started several years ago, when I started feeling a lot of stress, anxiety, and even full-on panic about writing. I won’t go into the whole story behind that right now; I’ve talked about it online a fair bit and might blog about it more in the future. For now, I’ll just say that due to a combination of personal-life stress and trauma along with poor sales and difficulty coming up with new stories at the pace I’d set myself, the writing part of my brain kind of collapsed. For years, I was unable to write anything at all.

I started writing again in 2020 or 2021, but not romance. Writing romance again didn’t happen until last year. But then I started feeling the stress and pressure again. It’s less than it was, in part because I’m self-publishing; some of the stress and anxiety years ago was a probably-irrational fear that my publishers would be angry with me for not selling more copies of my books. But it’s still present, and it still sometimes results in my mind going blank when I sit down to write something.

This time, I’m giving respect to that fear. That doesn’t mean letting it rule me, but it does mean that rather than fighting against the fears and the “don’t know what to write,” I’m honoring myself to the extent of saying, “Okay, let’s take a break for a week or two and see what happens.” It means rearranging the schedule I’d planned to accommodate not having a new book ready by a certain date, as well as making the decision that I will not announce release schedules more than six months in advance. (With the exception of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 5 and 6, which are coming out in January and July 2024 respectively.)

Sometimes it means not writing anything at all and letting that be the case, rather than letting not writing lead to the additional fear that I’m heading into another years-long stretch of not being able to write or fear that readers will forget I exist and my books will go down the tubes if I don’t release frequently. Trying to force writing when the ideas aren’t there only results in me writing something that’s either complete crap or that I half-ass so I can say it’s done, and obviously neither of those cases yields something I would actually want to put out in public.

At other times, though, ideas come to me and things flow. My novel Fill the Empty Spaces was a case of me saying “I want to write about someone grieving,” and then I followed the story and the main character. It led in a direction I wasn’t anticipating, but I think the book is good, and I will be releasing it in October of this year. A few weeks ago, I went to Canada to visit family and wrote two short stories while I was there, because ideas just popped into my head and I rolled with them.

Right now, I would like to be writing a short story or maybe starting another novel. But I don’t have any ideas, so I’m letting myself not write. The ideas will come, and when they do, I’ll write something good. Something I’ll be proud of. Until then, I’m respecting and honoring the part of me that feels anxious and fearful, and I’m letting writing not happen.

More Release Updates

Posted on by karennacolcroft

The best-laid plans and all of that…

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks looking at the plans I’d made for releases and rereleases and realizing a few things.

First… while I do need to plan things somewhat in advance, when I try to plan too far in advance, my brain rebels. It isn’t a choice on my part; it’s like my circuits overload and my brain just crashes. So I’m making plans for releases and rereleases, but only through January 2024. Things will be updated as I go along.

Second, if I insist that I’m going to write (or even rewrite/re-edit) things by a certain time “no matter what,” it sometimes results in the finished product being forced and not up to the quality standards I want to give to my readers. I need to have deadlines, but I also need flexibility, and I need to allow more time than I think I’ll actually require so that I don’t wind up feeling pressured and start short-cutting and half-assing things. I also need to give myself the freedom to say “Nope, this isn’t working, never mind” on any given project.

Third, and somewhat related to the above, the book I was originally planning to rerelease in September is not a book I actually want to rerelease at this time. Aside from needing more work than I anticipated to bring it to the standards I want, I don’t really connect with either of the two main characters. And if I don’t connect with them, readers won’t either. So this book is on the back burner; over time, I might see if I can do the work it needs not only to fix the current issues with it but also to make the characters people I want to get to know better.

And finally, since I’m now not releasing that book in September, I’ve decided to move my new novel Fill the Empty Spaces up by one month. Fill the Empty Spaces was going to be my November release; it will now be released on October 12. Going forward, I will be planning to release (or rerelease) 4 novels per year. This year, the next two releases will be July 13 (Try the Tofu) and Oct. 12; for 2024, I will be releasing books in January, April, July, and October, with the January and July releases being part of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series. The books for April and October 2024 are to be determined.

In between times, I may put out some free short stories or low-cost shorts/novellas, depending on what the writing part of my brain decides to do.

My two priorities with writing and self-publishing are to release good-quality, entertaining stories with characters that readers–and I–like and want more of; and to maintain my mental and physical health and well-being. By changing my plans as I’ve done, and allowing space to follow the writing muse from time to time, my hope is to meet both of those priorities.