What Have You Been Doing?

I'm coming to understand that I'm not a terrific blogger. At least up until now.


Perhaps the best I can do for my readers is tell them why.


This time, I was busy writing a novel. I finished yesterday, so I feel a bit free, with time to write for this blog. To me, as a novelist, writing a novel—finishing that novel and putting it in the mail—comes before blogging. It's a personal thing. Not every writer feels that way.


If you're a writer, it's a mighty good thing to sit down every once in a while and reflect on two thing:


1. What are your life priorities?


2. Are you living in congruence with those priorities?


In my case, I believe my priorities to be:


1. My health and the health of my family.


2. My novel writing—not merely writing, but improving my writing.


3. My relationships with my friends and colleagues, especially helping and being helped by my writing colleagues.


4. My teaching: the Problem Solving Leadership workshop, the AYE Conference, my Satir Writing Class, and other classes I offer from time to time.


5. Communication with my readers, as in blogging and answering inquiries, and occasionally speaking at conferences.


6. Vacations. This must be the bottom of the list, because I can't remember taking a vacation in at least thirty years.


Money is a very low priority at this point in my life because I have more money than years in which to spend it. In fact, giving away money is a higher priority than getting more. It wasn't always that way, and I know it's not that way for lots of young writers. Some older writers, too.


A writer's list of priorities is not nearly as important as whether or not that writer is sticking to that list. If you're not, then you need to face up the the discrepancy. Change your list or change your behavior. If you say that novel writing is a high priority, but you skip writing this week to paint the basement floor, what does that tell you? If becoming a published writer is at the top of your list and you have dozens of finished mss. that you've never mailed, or stopped mailing after one or two rejections, why are you kidding yourself?


Anyway, that's where I've been. One more novel in the mail. Where have you been?

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Jane Lindskold's blog has lots of information on cover art at Tor.com. Worth a look if you're interested in the brutal facts:

Part 1: http://tinyurl.com/8v7wg2


Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/8jbtq3


Part 3: http://tinyurl.com/9pnauv