I am shamed and saddened. I logged on and read the date of my last post. 30th October! Good heavens! However, this realisation has only added to the nagging voice that has been whispering in my ear for a few weeks now. Let me explain.
The new job is great (really, I love it - much to the surprise of my new boss, who raised her eyebrows and said 'Really? Oh, good.' - strange reaction. Still ...), but time consuming. I'm now up at 6.00 in order to leave the house at 7.45 (I know, but it takes me a while and a bucket of tea before I could contemplate even showering safely, let alone driving), not returning until some time between 5.45 and 6.00 in the evening. After getting changed, having a quick shufty at my emails and maybe a FB flick to see if anyone has posted anything I should know about (this also includes my writing group, so it's not all froth), it's probably about 6.30/6.45 and if I'm to have any chance of eating without subsequently going to bed with indigestion, then I need to start making dinner. Meal cooked, eaten and washed up, it's probably now between 8.00 and 8.30 and quite frankly I'm only fit for gawping mindlessly at the TV whilst attempting to keep my eyelids open until 10.00 when I can go to bed without feeling like a very sad person indeed. (And the first person to shout 'You're getting old!' will be taken off the Christmas card list forthwith!) This last often fails, I must add and the fine dramas screened at 9.00 are often watched in five to ten minute chunks with breaks in consciousness littered throughout. Very annoying and thank heavens for Sky+.
In my lunch break at work (when I get one) I try to find a quiet, secluded spot to write or read around my OU work - up until yesterday, when my assignment was sent in, this was plays and playwrighting. Other than sitting in the toilet (the smell is distracting and people still insist on coming in!) or the closed down cafeteria (just plain creepy) quiet, secluded spots are difficult to find in a city hospital.
The above has been written neither to elicit sympathy, nor as an excuse, but simply as a statement of fact.
It means that my writing and studying time is, realistically, reduced to weekends (the two days in which I also need to squeeze in household chores - limited, admittedly - and having some sort of social life). Which, in turn, means that time to write anything for pleasure alone is ... non existent!!
Q.E.D.
I haven't even mentioned the fact that the Proofreading and Copy Editing course that I signed up for in the summer has got as far as me sending in my first (mock) assessment - which received a creditable (apparently) B-, but has not been looked at since.
Seeing as Santa didn't deliver the extra two days in the week I requested (non-working days, obviously), I have had to re-evaluate my time management strategy. My thinking has gone as follows:
Parts of the OU course left to complete: Assignment 3 - write a tract on the benefits of critique and how it can change the way you view your work; Assignment 4 - write a proposal on something on want to write (!); Assignment 5 - write a 2500 word short story or a play (can't remember the running time); Assignment 6 - write a first attempt at the thing you proposed in Assignment 4; EMA - write the thing you proposed in TMA4 and stabbed at in TMA6 ie 4000 word short story, start of novel or 30 minute play. (Poetry is also included, but ... never again.)
Assignment 3 - if I don't know that by now, then what have I been doing on my 3 on-line forums and at my writing group for the past 18 months? Do I really need to explain it to you and be marked on it? Assignment 4 - yeah, I have proposals running through my head all the time, I just need time to sit and write some of them. Not having OU work to do would assist greatly in achieving this. Assignment 5 - nuff said, read previous. Assignment 6 - yup called a first draft, read previous. EMA - can I just get on with writing what I want to write, PLEASE!!
Proofreading course - possible source of lucre to either prop up writing career or subsidise part time work so that I can write. Also may give valuable connections in publishing world. Currently languishing untouched.
What would it be more important for me to finish? Add to that the fact that I want to stop fannying about and get on with writing now.
Where do we think the axe is going to fall?
It's a sad day :(
ReplyDeleteBut I know it has to happen.
M xx