Monday Mentions: Time Management & Internal Dialogue

I actually have quite a few things saved, but rather than throwing them all on here at once, I figure I’ll do just a few and save some of the others for next week. Then, hopefully I won’t run out of things to share for a while.

First up, a post from Kristen Lamb on Time Management. I like to think most of what  I do is being fruitful. Though I imagine time is wasted in being “busy” too. I make to-do lists for every day. The first thing on each of these is my writing goals. So, I try to get to those first, before the kids are up. This seems to be my most creative time of day. Once they’re up, I try to get all the chores done, then get back to writing until I finish that. Then, get to everything else on the list. If I finish everything before my self-appointed quitting time of 5 p.m.(dinner time in our house), I might start on the next day’s goals and get ahead.

Then, there’s a post by Marcy Kennedy about Signs You’re Overusing Internal Dialogue. I may be guilty of some of these. And my CP usually ends up pointing them out. “Repetitive” “They just said that”. Yep. Oops. Definitely a good thing to watch for when reading through a WiP.

And this one from L.S. Engler resonated with me. Not really about writing, but she does tie in the issue of marketing. This is basically me, though. I don’t not like people. I’m just not very good about interacting with them. Really, ask any of my family. They pretty much know if they want to find out what’s going on with me, they need to call me. I don’t pick up the phone if I don’t have to. I’m not just introverted or shy, though. There’s a good dose of social anxiety and it can rear its head at the most unlikely times. Unfortunately, it also affects me marketing my books. For some people, the internet may actually help them get past that anxiety. For me, it’s still there. The only benefit is that I can take all the time I need to construct a sentence. Of course, it also means  I can easily lose my nerve about something and just delete it all. It’s definitely something I need to work on(and actually has gotten a bit better with blogging and interacting on social media).

That’s all I have for this week. Next week more research-based topics. Have you read anything that really stuck with you recently? Anything helping with the craft of writing?