Time Management Tuesday: Yes Or No?

Last fall, Nancy Tandon, a writers' group buddy, did a post at her blog called The Power of "Yes." Interesting things happen to Nancy on a regular basis. We're talking TV and teaching, people. Why? She makes a good case that it's due to her willingness to say "yes" to new experiences.

Now, I'm a big believer in attitude impacting our lives. But what really interested me regarding what's been happening with Nancy is that in time management we're advised to say "no."

Like That Woman Said Years Ago, Just Say "No"

What the time management people mean is say "no" in order to protect your time, so it's available for working toward goals. For writers, we'd be protecting our time for writing. Time is like your core in a fight and overextending yourself with nonwork-related activities you've said "yes" to are attacks on it. (You know I love martial arts analogies.) Therefore, say "no" to volunteer work. "No" to craft classes. "No" to book discussions. "No" to walking groups. "No" to a second tai chi class each week. "No" to graduate school. Those are examples from my life, by the way.

But if you're saying "no" to so many new experiences, are you missing the kinds of opportunities Nancy writes about? Are you maybe even missing opportunities that could help with your writing?

What to do, what to do?

It Depends On Your Situation, Of Course

You know how we can't create one time management plan and expect it to always work for us because our life situations keep changing? Yeah, well, those changing life situations mean we can sometimes say "yes" to opportunities. Then, when our situation changes, we've got to live like monks and say, "no, no, no."

• Early in our careers when we aren't publishing and don't have marketing and promotion eating up our time, we can say "yes" to more things.
• When we're working on deadlines, we have to say "no."
• If an activity is a multiplier, one that hits more than one of our work/personal goals, we may want to say "yes."
• If we're working a day job as well as writing, we're probably going to hear the word "no" a lot. Coming from us. 
• Volunteer work for a writers' organization might be a very good thing to say "yes" to because of the opportunities to meet people in our field. Then again, some of those volunteer positions are so demanding that the people holding them can't write for long periods of time. So..."no?"

A number of years ago, I had to say "no" to a writers' group, and four or five years ago, I would never have been able to say "yes" to all the professional events I've attended recently. But my situation has changed. You hear "yes" at my house more often these days.

If, like Nancy and me, you find yourself in a situation in which you can say "yes," you might want to take advantage of it. Change is constant. Your situation is bound to be different somewhere down the road.

The Best Writers' Retreat Ever

This Year I Needed A Work Station

For eleven years, my husband and I have taken off for a week in January to hunker down at a resort timeshare unit that's been in his family since the 1980s. We think of it as a retreat week, when we get away from problems of all sorts. I read, he does mind-boggling jigsaw puzzles in disturbingly short periods of time, we frolic in the snow for a few hours here and there, go out to eat because I don't go near a stove unless it burns wood for looks, not heat. We can't do those things at home because of one thing and another. 

This year, I had to work while retreating because I need to make some submissions this week. Last week I:

Retreat Week's Completed Reading

• Created a fifth draft of The Mummy Hunters with the edits I did on the fourth draft before I left home.
• Wrote a #@!! synopsis for The Mummy Hunters.
• Spellchecked and did a word count for The Mummy Hunters.
• Finished reading the second book for Cybils judging, read all of the third one, and started the fourth.
• Read a load of bookmarked articles. I still have a load of them. I've got to stop bookmarking all this stuff from the Internet. Really. I do.

 

What A Bummer, Huh?

 

I worked every day, maybe an hour, an hour and a half. It was probably closer to two hours on Friday. This should have really su...su...ssstunk, given that my retreat week is supposed to be all about doing whatever I want and not very much of that. But it didn't stink. It was great.

Rosemary Ice Cream--Amazing

I came away with a feeling of accomplishment, a load off my mind. I was also able to get in some practice for the new tai chi routine we're working on in class, watched three episodes of The Incredible Kimmy Schmidt, may have found a computer program I need for a personal project, hit a new snowshoe trail, and ate some quite decent poutine, as well as some rosemary ice cream, which was just as marvelous as it sounds.

Not All Writers' Retreats Go Like This

 

Needless to say, this was the best writers' retreat I've ever been on. Why?

• The other (real) retreats I've attended were more like mini-conferences than retreats. There were presentations or some sort of activity scheduled for most of the time. I didn't come home with any work done, because there was no time to do any.
• I'd been working on this project for a couple of years and was at the tale end tidy up point. If I'd been trying to generate new material, there's a real chance I'd be whining now about my ruined retreat.
• I had plenty of space and quiet, which can be hard to find on official retreats.
• I really could do whatever I wanted, because of the lack of presentations, panels, one-on-one critiques, etc.

I came away wondering if there is a way I can replicate this experience. But, you know, wanting to do this again sounds a lot like desire. And what does desire lead to? Unhappiness.

I will satisfy myself with being happy with last week's experience.
 
 

Retreat Week Starts Tomorrow

You won't be seeing me here next week, because I am heading off to my retreat spot. Yes, that's my spot within the spot that you see to your right.

It will be less retreaty than usual, because I have to make a submission the next week. I still have some work to do on the manuscript. I also have to have another three and a half books read by the end of the first week of February for the Cybils.

To keep up some retreat feeling, I'll stay off the blog and Facebook. Also, I'll eat out every day, do a 3- to 4-hour snowshoe trip, hit Bear Pond Books, and read magazines.

A la prochane.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Jan. 8th Edition

Okay, it's my first week with the 2016 goals and objectives. Hup, hup, hup.

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives: I did lay out 3 things I need to focus on this month. And here I am, continuing with the weekly check of goals. Well, done, Gail!

Goal 2. Prepare Mummy Hunters for Submission: Oh, man, did I ever hammer away on this one. Last Saturday, New Year's Day, in case anyone has forgotten, I finished the second draft, which was very gratifying because the last few chapters of the first draft were dreadful. Barely there, to be honest. I also completed revising what I call the paper draft, meaning I printed out the entire manuscript and revised that. I've started work on the synopsis. And, yes, every awful thing you've heard about synopses is true. And you've heard nothing good about them.

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs: I got a start on the Writing Strategies program for the beginning of March. The confirmation letter and invoice are sitting on a counter, ready to be mailed.

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding: Four blog posts since Sunday, two of them promoted in a number of places. I've also finished one and three-quarters of the five books I need to read for the Cybils.

This week I hit four of the six goals I have for this year. January is always a good month.

David The Statue's Story

I was certain I wrote this post weeks ago. I'm sure I didn't lose it. Someone must have taken it. Yeah. That's what happened.

Okay, I became interested in Stone Giant: Michelangelo's David And How He Came To Be by Jane Sutcliffe when I heard the author speak about it at the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. (I know this isn't the first time I wrote that sentence.) She described how she saw the Biblical David's story in the face of  David, the statue.

But Stone Giant is the story of David, the statue, not Biblical David. There are several great elements here. The historical context. The great illustrations by John Shelley. And the basic narrative about a big stone waiting for someone to find David in it.

I like children's books about art. But Stone Giant is about something more specific. It's a book about a specific piece of art. It's also an example of a nonfiction author finding and writing about a little known historical event. 

Jane, and I say Jane because (FTC transparency moment) she's in my writers' group,  has a new book coming out in March, Will's Words: How William Shakespeare Changed The Way You Talk. She'll be signing copies this very weekend at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Boston.

The Hired Girl Takes The 2016 Scott O'Dell Award

My Facebook page just lit up with the news that The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz has won the 2016 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

Goals And Objectives For 2016

Last week in my 2015 Recapitulation Post you learned that I did not make good use of my 2015 goals and objectives. So one of my goals this year will be to do better. Otherwise, my goals are pretty much the same as last year, though objectives are often different. I'm also doing more with giving myself time frames for some of the objectives.

For anyone new just dropping by: I just want to point out that goals are what one hopes to achieve, objectives are the tasks necessary to achieve them. What you're going to do, how you're going to do it. A goal without objectives is a lot like a New Year's resolution. It leaves you with no idea how you're going to do what you want to do.

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives 

Objectives:

• Plan goal work for each month, making sure that each goal gets some attention each quarter.
• Continue weekly checks of goals. 

Goal 2. Prepare Mummy Hunters for Submission

Objectives:

• Complete revision of paper draft
• Prepare synopsis
• Prepare cover letter
• Submit to first four agents
• Prepare for next round of submissions

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs

   

Objectives

• Prepare Writing Strategies workshops for school appearance at beginning of March. Set aside time each week in January and February for this.
• Prepare articles using material from last year's workshop submissions. Set aside time each week after Writing Strategies is completed.
• Complete at least one short story, using the weekly time set aside for new work/programs.
• Essay possibilities: The workshop slide change; my love for my iphone

Goal 4. Marketing Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook

Objectives

• Look into taking book down from Barnes & Noble and Kobo to take advantage of Kindle. marketing for books exclusive to that company.
• Look into the expense involved with printing a paper edition. (This would involved negotiating with the cover artist, since our contract only involves a digital edition.)
• If I move to Amazon KDP Select, plan some Twitter promotion, maybe in relation to Earth Day month
• Collect names of some authors who might be interested in doing a Christmas eBook promotion this year. 

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

These were separate goals last year. I'm lumping them together, because community building is marketing. It's warm and fuzzy and makes marketing/branding connections at the same time.

Objectives

• Continue with writers' group
• Continue with Original Content
• January--Cybils judging
• Check out NESCBWI spring conference, with possibility of attending
• Check out NESCBWI-PAL offerings this year, with possibility of attending
• Look into starting Instagram account (I have a plan.)
• Attend other authors' appearances, as I did last year
• Continue with (and keep better track of time used on) promoting Original Content at Google+, Facebook communities, Goodreads' blog, and Twitter
• Continue reviewing environmental books at Amazon
• Research markets for short work.
• Do at least two updates for my website, one this month relating to my work for the Cybils and the new workshop I'm developing and another after the school appearance date, when I will post a workshop description.

Goal 6. Generate New Work: Revise Adult Version of Becoming Greg and Emma 

Objective:

• Summer or fall

 

My Christmas In Books, Part 2

Christmas is finally over for the Gauthiers, and I can report on the last of the books I gave to family members.

Impressionist Painting for the Landscape by George Gallo & Cindy Salaski and The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision by Linda S. Ferber We have a couple of family members who paint, paint well, and study their art. One of them asked for these books. If I had all the time in the world, I'd do some reading on the Hudson River School. Maybe I can find an exhibit somewhere.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge and The New Artisan Bread in Fives Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. I've bought my niece nearly 40 books over the years (I kept a list--you have to with that many books or you'll buy duplicates.) Earlier this year, I learned that in addition to reading fantasy, she likes to bake. But she wasn't into baking bread, because it took too long. Well, as my Facebook friends will tell you, I am notori--legendary for baking, including bread. So I fixed Becki up with a bread baking book I've used myself.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough and The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. We have a family member who reads historical nonfiction. When we saw him in October, I learned that he wasn't familiar with graphic nonfiction, believing that all graphic work was fiction for kids. Well, we fixed that!

And what did I get in the way of books, you may ask? Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson, which my loyal followers know I appreciate very much. I also received a hefty Amazon gift card that will cover my eBook purchases for months to come.

What Does New Year's Day Mean In The Kidlitosphere?

Why, it means the announcement of the Cybils finalists, of course.

Here we are particularly interested in the Middle Grade Fiction Finalists. This year, I am a judge for this round in this category. You will be hearing more from me on the subject next month.

January Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar

After a busy autumn, it is bleak midwinter in Connecticut. When I did the calendar search before Christmas, I found no appearances next month in this state at all. Another search this past week turned up two hearty souls braving whatever January has to bring for weather in southern New England.

Thurs., Jan. 14, Shari Arnold, Wallingford Public Library, Wallingford 6:30

Sat., Jan. 16, A. L. Davroe, West Hartford Public Library, West Hartford 1:00 to 2:00 PM.

Sat.. Jan. 23, A. L. Davroe, Barnes & Noble, Stamford 2:00 to 4:00 PM