Coffee Klatch

I have to keep reminding myself that I am seeking balance in my life, not perfection. I want a life where I have time to do the things that I love and also finish the tasks that I’m obligated to do. Last week, my goal was to begin building balance into my life so I am not working on one thing all the time. The first thing I did last week was to make time for my writing. I am reading a book called Manage Your Day-to-day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind. So far, I’ve gleaned two pieces of advice that have helped me start on the path to balance. The first thing was to build a routine around my writing and to show up everyday to write, whether I feel like it or not. The second piece of advice was to do my creative work during the time of day when I have the most energy. I put both of these pieces of advice into place last week. I made a time to write every day and I sat down to write whether I felt like it or not. Both these things helped me to write several blog posts, to begin planning my second novel, and to continue revising my first novel. Once my block of writing time was over I was able to take a break and then get to work on the work I needed to do for my classes. Even though I spent the morning writing, I still had energy to work on my lesson plans for my classes.

I was also able to begin developing a content calendar for my blog. I know I want to continue with the “Coffee Klatch” entries on Monday, and I got a couple of ideas for other weekly entries. One day a week, I am going to critique something (last week was romance novels). This week, I am going to review a Netflix series I just finished called MindHunter. Since another goal in my life is to create a healthier lifestyle, I am going to include a weekly entry about health and wellness topics. That will give me some help with developing ideas. I was going to post my new novel, but I am not to the drafting stage. I am still planning and finding out who my characters are, but I may do some entries about the process of writing.

This week, I am going to continue carving out a chunk of time for my writing. My goal this week is to write four blog posts this week. I also want to finish developing the characters for my new novel and finish revising chapter two in the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo.