Friday, February 20, 2009

What balance? *tips over*...

I have to whole-heartedly agree with fellow Girls have posted so far on this subject.

There is no balance. Not at this point.

The fact that I am currently cultivating a raging head-cold - having turned in my last round of edits on my Book 2 manuscript only a week or two ago - is evidence of the fact that I am somewhat out of whack. I don't usually get sick. I suppose I could lay partial blame on the recent spate of crappy weather, but I'm Canadian. We're not technically allowed to do that.

No, rather, I think my system is just a little overloaded. Or overwhelmed. Or something. Because this isn't the first time this has happened in recent memory and I'm starting to see a pattern. See... it's been about a year and a half now since I first jumped on the soon-to-be-published-author train and in that time my books and this biz have gleefully and with joyous abandon taken over my life. Disclaimer: I wouldn't have it any other way and this is in NO way to be construed as a complaint (although the sniffling is rather annoying, I grant you...)

This is a profession that tends to be somewhat consuming. And sometimes you (or, at least, I)forget to do the little things. Things like eating at regular intervals and taking your vitamins and getting enough sleep when you're hip-deep in revisions, for example. And then, you turn those pages in and suddenly - a week or so later - your system takes a little nose-dive just to serve as a gentle reminder that, you know, you might wanna get around to doing stuff like that.

It's funny. I find it's almost exactly the same thing as doing a show. There's rehearsl and production week and load-in and performance... and then the second the curtain goes down on the last show, I can instantly feel the sneeze coming on. With the books, the process is a bit more protracted but it's fundamentally the same. Go go go go go go go go... collapse.

But - here's the thing. It's okay to collapse every once and awhile - if you're doing it with a big ol' grin on your face.

3 comments:

Jillian Cantor said...

Feel better! I've been there -- I think part of being a writer is having the ability to have that sort of obsessive drive and block everything else out for a while.

Wrighty said...

Balance is a tough thing to accomplish, especially when you're busy. Sometimes it's just about survival!

5wrights1@verizon.net

Maureen Lipinski said...

Edits for Book 2 you say? Can I reserve an ARC now? :)