My secret time management weapon

by Maria Geraci


Recently, I was interviewed by Nurseweek magazine for an upcoming article. The theme of the article? How I juggle my two careers. Like most published authors, I have a second job, or as I like to put it, the job that actually pays the bills. My income as an author is just too shaky at this point to quit my day job (or in my case, my night job). You see, for almost 28 years I've worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse. A job that I still to this day love, and will probably continue in some capacity until the day I retire.

Is it difficult working two jobs? You bet. But it's also incredibly rewarding. Eleven years ago I began writing because there was a creative void in my life. Today, that void is filled, and while there are times I find myself daydreaming of owning a house on the beach and writing full time, I've also discovered that the nursing part of my life makes me a more complete person. Writing is a solitary profession. Nursing, on the other hand, is an intimate profession. You engage with others at a time in their lives when emotions are high. Nursing helps me fill what I like to call my "creative well". No man (or woman) is an island. And neither is any writer. In order to write well, we have to be active participants in life.

So...how do I work 2 jobs and stay sane? Some days it's not easy and a lot of days I simply have to admit to myself that I can't do everything I'd like. But to quote someone (not sure who, but they knew what they were talking about) you always find time to do the things you really want. Over the years I've found a simple management tool that's allowed me keep all my juggling balls in the air and I don't have to go far to find it because it's in my kitchen. Yep, you probably guessed it. It's my kitchen timer.

The first time I thought about using a timer to help me write was while reading cleaning tips from The Fly Lady, who has all kinds of theories about how much you can do in 15 minutes. While 15 minutes might not seem like a long time, it's long enough to spot clean your kitchen, or in my case, write 3 sentences. And for me, 3 sentences is the magic formula that gets my brain flowing and puts me into my story. Three sentences here and three sentences there, and soon, I have a scene. Most days, if I'm off from work, I try to write in 1 hour increments, using my timer as an absolute. As in, I will absolutely not get off my arse until my timer goes off. One hour is my max concentration time. After that, my fingers tend to wander towards the computer keys that will take me to Facebook or email, but I figure I can do anything for an hour.

How about you? Any secret
 time management tips you'd like to share?

Maria Geraci was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised on Florida’s Space Coast. Her love of books started with the classic, Little Women (a book she read so often growing up, she could probably quote). She writes contemporary romance and women’s fiction with a happy ending. Her fourth novel, A Girl Like You, was released last August by Berkley, Penguin, USA. You can connect with Maria by visiting her website, www.mariageraci.com

Springtime Chaos and Making Time to Write by Jess Riley

Spring is always an incredibly stressful time for me, as it’s my “busy season” at work. My "day job" is grant writing, and the deadlines for the grants I write typically fall between January and June.  

In fact, this week I have three huge grants due and two more in the chute for an out-of-state client. I met with an awesome book club last night, and I’ll visit a freshman lit class at UW-O on Thursday. I’m presenting at the Fox Cities Book Festival next Wednesday and prepping for another panel I’m on at a local writer’s conference on May 11.

From last night. An excellent excuse to leave the computer and actually put on makeup.

I’m still trying to squeeze in a little reading at night, because I want to. (Just finished Unimaginable Zero Summer by Leslie Stella, and at the risk of sounding like Annie Wilkes, I am her new biggest fan. Next up: Jennifer Close’s new novel, The Smart One, and the fabulous Sarah Pekkanen’s latest, The Best of Us) 

And I just finished copyediting my next novel. I can’t WAIT to introduce you all to Graham and Drew this summer. Graham is my favorite character I’ve ever created.

I like to live on the edge.  (Or maybe it’s “I like to live in a house and have clean running water and money for groceries and good coffee and the occasional dress from Modcloth.”)

Though spring is stressful, I adore it. The tulips that I planted last October are finally poking through the soil, and I’ve got two flats of seedlings under lights in my bathroom. 

I don’t mind being crazy-busy, but the perennial trick for me has been juggling writing fiction with writing grant proposals.  I typically have summers off after my crunch time, which is when I do the bulk of my fiction writing. (Though this is changing…) Day jobs and writing—how do the rest of you in this situation manage it? One of my strategies is to set priorities and get organized, reserving time daily to write--which I’m not always good at.  When I’m crazy busy, this can get a little fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants.  Recording digital notes in the car, scribbling scenes on any scrap of paper I can find (you should see the last pages of my checkbook register), keeping a notebook by my bed so I can jot down a sentence or two whenever the muse strikes. Left brain, right brain, rinse and repeat…

No matter what, however, I MAKE the time because writing is what I do. I love it. I get depressed when I’m not actively engaged in writing or editing a novel. It feels like working two full-time jobs at certain times of the year, but I’m figuring it out. My friends know I won’t be a hermit forever, and my family has put up with me for this long (maybe so I don’t put them in my novels…).

You don’t think you’ll need excellent time management and prioritization skills to manage your writing career when you’re a starry-eyed kid dreaming of telling stories for a living, but yep. You do. I’d love to hear how you balance writing with the rest of your lives: motherhood, jobs, families, other responsibilities, even the time suck of social media.  Are there times of the year when you get more writing done than others? Or is it a daily balance? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jess Riley will be at the Little Chute Public Library on Wednesday, April 17 at 6:30, part of the Fox Cities Book Festival, to chat books, publishing, writing, whatever else comes up. She hopes it won't be too obvious that her brain is entirely fueled by coffee and panic this time of year. 

All the Lonely People is her latest novel.

Time, the Only Thing You Can’t Make Up

By Laura Spinella

We could each write a character with pristine time management skills. In fact, I’m working with a guy right now who is an incredible specimen of man and management. Levi St John is the composite of a shrewd, buttoned-up editor-in-chief I used to call boss, and the sexy geek-god I rode an Orbit bus with every day to North campus but never really knew. Levi’s outer shell, well, that’s wrapped in Tony Robbins confidence.  You know, the iron jaw motivational guru who, I suspect, but don’t know for sure, harbors some critical flaw. Levi’s flaw is his past, but his current time management skills are stellar.

Sadly, Levi has to rely on my time management skills for his next breath. And in this effort, I’m afraid I fail him miserably. If I did work for Levi (which metaphorically I suppose I do), he’d have fired me months ago. But I think that’s standard fare for authors who write books and don’t earn a living from them. My typical day gets divided into thirds. How about yours? Part one is spent running this house and the beings who reside inside. You know how that goes. I’m not whining, but I am responsible for everything from trips to the veterinarian to the dry cleaner, as well as deciding what’s for dinner 365 times a year. Yes, even the much frequented Rancho Chico is a decision, one that generally falls to me. Complicating this third is that pesky child rearing thing, which runs on no manmade timepiece. While we’re on the downside of the hill, and my crew toes-the-line for the most part, you never know when a crisis will arise. It’s guaranteed to knock the Levis of my life right off the radar until all has been averted or resolved.

            The middle portion of my day is dedicated to a multitude of other authors and their needs. For the past year, I’ve worked for AuthorBytes, a very cool web-developer. As time goes, I’m fortunate in this respect. I only have to switch from the computer in the sunroom to the computer in the study. After arriving, I tend to a cornucopia of tasks, everything from assisting in the redesign of a website to showing one of our 500 clients how to navigate the inner workings of their website. It’s an interesting gig for a girl who stumbled through blog posts when she joined GBC two years ago. Seriously, who knew I had untapped mad computers skills? Well, that’s sort of a fib. My co-workers, aka computer wizards, don’t really ask anything that requires too much computer literacy. Mostly, I was brought on board to translate. Suggest to the tech folks how authors might see things, and to guide authors through the treacherous but necessary minefield of web technology. Still, it’s a singular job with fun perks, like rubbing elbows with New York Times bestselling authors.  Although, I also enjoy chatting with our first-time, nervous-Nellie clients—I once knew somebody like that! The chance to pay-it-forward is more gratifying than I might have imagined. But hours during this third can be erratic. If something big is brewing, I must defer to AuthorBytes, just when I’m on the brink of a major plot point between Levi and Aubrey (love interest whose skill set, while intriguing, also does not include good time management). Again, he, his story, and his developing love life are sent to the back of the line.

Gratuitous Seussical photo of Grant (center)

            Finally comes the last third of my day, which is really the first third. It can begin as early as 5:30 a.m., though cutoff is noon sharp. But even here time management can take a beating. For reasons I suspect writers can relate to, it is excusable to abandon a WIP if the insurance man I’ve been trying to get a hold of for days calls at 10:00 a.m., or, God forbid, my editor emails. If Grant, my 15-year old, forgets his biology textbook, you know I’m leaving Levi mid-thought to run it up to the high school. Of course, that was a purely facetious example, as Grant would never purposely call asking for his biology textbook.  But things will go my way eventually, including a string of days, usually two or three rainy ones, where it’s nose-to-the-grindstone writing. Interruptions are avoidable and I walk the romantic linguistic walk that writers’ dream of, or at least embellish to their friends. No, time management is not my strong suit; I am a greased hourglass in that regard. I have no spunky or foolproof advice to offer. But what I will have, maybe late this fall—despite the lack of regimented writing—is a decent draft. The one where Levi St John’s story will be told and, hopefully, book number three will be well in hand.       

Laura Spinella is the author of the award winning novel, BEAUTIFUL DISASTER and the forthcoming title-pending Penguin novel, for which we may soon hold a GBC suggestion contest! Visit her at www.lauraspinella.net.