Showing posts with label book idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book idea. Show all posts

Friday, July 28, 2017

Flying Time

I'm late posting today because I forgot to check the calendar. These days if I don't check my calendar when I get up in the morning, I'm likely not to be where I should be or to forget something I need to do. That happens in the summer.

During the summer, I'm likely to be so deep into writing that I forget what day of the week it is. Today, I knew it was Friday but what I was thinking about is that I have only another month left before school begins. I was wishing I had more time because I'd had a brilliant idea – about a book that I haven't started yet, about third in the queue.

But now I have the plot. An idea that came to me when I woke up early and started thinking about a situation I needed to deal with because it was distracting me. I make a telephone call, got someone else to take care of it, and then realized thinking about the worst case scenario had given me the method of death and a bunch of suspects for that book I don't have time to start now.

What I need to do today is get into my office at school and take care of some emails I need to return. I would like to be more efficient – deal with each email as it comes in. But I've been trying to do similar tasks all at the same time. The only problem with that is that I can't forget what I haven't done, and more items get added to the list. And something unexpected pops up. And the game plan gets shot to whatever.

I admit it. I am in a continuing state of frustration because I am never as efficient as I'd like to be. I have so many ideas and so little time to get it all done. It shouldn't be a choice between speed and quality. On the other hand, if I didn't have one eye on the clock and the other on the calendar, I would spend the next five years doing research and tinkering. I have two books – one nonfiction, the other my historical thriller – that I just need to get down on paper. Finish the first drafts. Then revise. And then I can start the next book in the queue.

Anyone have any tips on making peace with time?