It’s hard to find balance when you are trying to juggle so many tasks at once. Writing a novel is not an easy task and when you take on the added pressure of participating in National Novel Writing Month and having to write every single day and write a specific amount of words just to meet one specific goal.
If you add to that the pressure of completing the other projects and tasks that you have to do that also concern your writing career such as keeping up with your blog, making that deadline for the novel or non-fiction book that you need to get to your editor, or the articles that you are being paid to write by a specific time, it can be extremely hard to find that balance to handle it all. Here are a few suggestions on how you can balance your Novel and your other writing projects and weave them into one another, if you can.
1) Separate your writing tasks and times over different days. For instance, choose to work on your novel for NaNoWriMo at one time period of the day (in the morning or in the evening) and work on one of your other writing assignments in the opposite time period of the day. If you have multiple tasks aside from your NaNoWriMo novel then split it up and do one task on one day and another on another day.
2) If your main writing tasks aside from doing your NaNoWriMo novel is doing your blog then weave the two tasks together. Blog about your NaNoWriMo experience. Blog about your novel and how the process of writing your novel is going. Blog about your characters and allow your readers to get to know them before your novel even gets published and comes out. This will allow your blog posts to come a little easier to you while under the pressure of writing your novel and still keep you on course with maintaining your blog.
3) Write your articles that have to be written about your experience of NaNoWriMo. Write articles about your process of writing your novel. Write the articles that you are submitting for payment about having to balance your novel with your other tasks of being a writer, a business person, and a parent. These articles will not only come easier because you are living that experience but they won’t take too much extra thought process and research (that it would take to do the health related article you would normally be writing right now) which would be time taken away from writing your novel.
4) If you honestly are not good at balancing the multiple writing tasks then focus on the novel and write notes regarding the other projects you need to work on in a notepad. This allows you to focus on that novel, get it done, and still not lose the ideas that you have for your other projects. That way when you are finished with NaNoWriMo and your novel you can immediately go implement the ideas and notes that you jotted down with your other projects.
I hope some of these suggestions help you keep that balance and get that novel done. There’s only ten more days so hang in there. You can do this!
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310
Write 2 Be 