The Writing Life: When You Fall Behind

As writers, each of have the same time constraints—24 hours. Within that time, there are family responsibilities and other things which cut into our work time. A week ago I went to a live event in Louisville, Kentucky with over 850 people in attendance. I spent the majority of those days meeting and connecting with new people to see if they will be potential authors for Morgan James Publishing. Through the years, I've been finding many of my authors for Morgan James through live events. With a pandemic, these events haven't been happening but have returned. I'm grateful for these opportunities but when I seize them, I understand that I fall behind in other aspects of my work. Also I understand the initial meeting is important but the real work happens through the follow-up emails and phone calls—which require even more time and energy which makes me fall even further behind.

When you fall behind, you have two basic choices. You can get overwhelmed and stalled so little happens during your day. The other choice is the one is to lean into these opportunities. Every day I write a few of these new contacts and follow-up on my conversations with them. Also I continue to do my social media posts and work on my current writing projects. Here's some other “truths:”

--you have to take your own responsibility for your own success

--if you don't do the work, it simply does not get done—follow-up emails, phone calls and other aspects

--you have to chip away at the work one day at a time until it gets done

As I've mentioned in some of these entries, every day I leave with work which did not get done—pages that didn't get written, phone calls that did not get made and emails that did not get answered. I'm grateful for the work but this reality is inherent in the process. No one can be a master of every aspect of the publishing work. We have to make choices what we write or create or do. Because of those choices, other things are not able to happen. Life is a balancing act and each of us have to find our place in the world.

Here's some things I've learned which help:

--use tools like your phone and scheduling tools like Hootsuite to be consistent

--continue to work at growing in your craft and storytelling ability

--your commitment to communicate clearly and learn new techniques will help

The publishing journey is complicated for each of us and filled with many twists and turns. The people who continue in the marketplace are the ones who have learned how to handle the bumps and the delays and the feelings of being behind. These people continue to keep their fingers on the keyboard and produce in spite of the rejection—and every one of us (including me) gets rejected. This rejection is business and not personal (even if on the surface it feels personal). My encouragement is for you to continue moving forward—even when you fall behind.

How do you handle your writing life when you fall behind? Let me know in the comments below.

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Each of us only have limited time and energy for our writing life. What happens when you fall behind? Get some insights from this prolific editor and author. (ClickToTweet)