Juggling it ALL!

It's a deceptively sunny 45 degrees on this Tuesday, April 21. I've just had a morning of dusting the house, cleaning bathrooms, grocery shopping, eating a protein-rich lunch, getting in a thirty-minute walk, and just completed my first hour of copyediting before I whip up a cake for my sister's birthday tomorrow and squeezing in some more work while that bakes . . .

As an author, nothing prepares you for ALL the directions you may be pulled, especially when preparing a book for publication. With that said, I’m so grateful for the freelance work that helps me to fund my various publishing projects. 

As of this week, I am currently juggling the following projects: 

Freelance copyediting:

Helping me to finance my publishing endeavors, I began a freelance copyediting gig this week. I absolutely love proofreading/copyediting—and it’s what got me into writing in the first place! I’m grateful for my client’s understanding that this is coming at a time when I’m getting another book in the world, so they've graciously given me ample time to complete the job! Phew.

Creating an audiobook script for my first book:

I’m halfway through the “script” to turn Malice Aforethought into an audiobook, which I hope to send off to my narrator next week. I'm in the process of marking up a PDF of the book in order to provide pronunciation for difficult/antiquated words and various character names, as well as writing character descriptions to aid in acting portrayal. I’m so beyond excited to FINALLY be at this point, since an audiobook has been highly requested, and I’m so pleased with the audition of this narrator and can’t wait to hear my story brought to life! 

Proofing my upcoming release:

This past weekend I received the completed proofed copy of my upcoming release from my very talented proofreader. I can now begin implementing those changes to then upload my book to receive physical "proof" copies, which is always an exciting day in an author's life! 

Researching book THREE:

During ANY spare time, I’m also busy at work organizing my third book research into Scrivener, which is currently at 915,579 words! I began gathering the research one year ago and started putting my research notes into Scrivener this past November.

Working on my new author blog:

My intention is to try to release a blog post every week or two. I like the idea of releasing during the middle of the week, that way I can begin preparing a draft on a lazy Sunday, and then taking a couple of days to fine tune it. Fortunately, I have a list of over FIFTY topics I plan to write about, but I also encourage questions from blog readers that you might like me to cover. So please feel free to engage with me in the comments.

So . . . how do I manage it all? 

The key is to know what to prioritize and how to block your time wisely. After all, I am my own manager, and there’s no one here to tell me what to do and when. I start my day with the slow-morning approach (or Miracle Morning)! I wake up anywhere between 5:45 and 6:15am. After brushing my teeth, I pour myself a large glass of water and putter around the house, accomplishing light chores for about twenty minutes.

Then it's my favorite time of the day: forty-five glorious minutes of sitting in my home library with a cup of Nespresso coffee—which I only started drinking coffee this past November. Crazy, right?! I had no idea what I was missing!—anyway, I sit in the path of the rising sun with a kitty on my lap and my hubby on the chair beside me as I read a research book for whatever book I'm writing next. I have just begun my seventeenth non-fiction book on the topic I plan to write about for my third book.

It's then time to make my daily green breakfast smoothie (which I've had everyday for the last nine years . . . it's all about brain food in this line of work), and I sip that while I get ready for the day and listen to an audiobook. I then have my morning prayer/meditation. It's after such time that I make a green tea and sit down to my first hour of work. If I'm currently engaged in a freelance capacity, I ALWAYS start with that, as I like to give the first fruits of my day to any freelance gig so that I'm performing work for someone else when my brain is freshest and I have the sharpest eyes. With that said, I don’t like to work on any single freelance project more than two hours a day. That might not sound like much time, but the longer you spend on such a scrutinizing task, the more you’re likely to miss due to burnout. So I have found that task switching really helps with that.

As a believer that decision fatigue is real, I always have the same two variations of lunch—it's either rotisserie chicken with coleslaw and cucumbers or a veggie charcuterie along with a hard boiled egg and cottage cheese. I then go out for a daily walk while listening to an audiobook. Usually I walk no matter the weather—except pouring rain or icy conditions.

After my walk, I sit down to an entire afternoon of work—using a pomodoro timer set at fifty- to sixty-minute increments—to work on one or more of my other projects throughout the afternoon. Once the timer is up, I try my best to get up and get movement for at least twenty minutes, which often consists of my performing chores around the house. Then the routine continues until it's time for me to make dinner.

At times, it can definitely feel and look like a lot . . . but I’ve learned that, oftentimes, it’s feast or famine in this line of work—both in being an author and a freelance editor. So you really have to love the work and have a passion for it. It is, after all, as Mark Twain said: "Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life." ;)