A Time to Write, Confirmed!

Well, to refer to a couple of posts back and my desire to find more regular time to write...

Yesterday my wonderful boss, Mary, approached me with an unexpected gift! Mary regularly affirms and encourages my "on-the-side" writing, and offered to let me work a more flexible corporate world schedule in order to have a dedicated day of each week to do it. Hence, I will on most weeks work the popular "four 10s," as in 10 hours per day, four days per week, and take one day--such as Friday!--off in order to do whatever I want!

This is good on both the writing and the family fronts. For many years I've maintained a full-time job while doing quite a bit of freelancing on the side. I've worked these writing episodes in whenever possible--lunchtimes, evenings, weekends--and since having kids those weekend hours with the laptop at the coffeeshop have proved more difficult to maneuver. So, I will have a dedicated day to write (Praise God from whom all blessings flow, or what?) and a full weekend to spend with the family. Plus, hopefully fewer late nights staring bleary-eyed at the computer screen or doing a telephone interview that doesn't start until 9 p.m., when this morning person is usually winding down for slumber.

Now you might say, "10-hour days, ick!" This is true. But I'm already basically working 9 hour days, since I come in about 8, eat lunch at my desk while working and leave at 5. So what's another 60 minutes squeezed in here and there each day, in order to face a glorious day at the coffee shop where I divvy my time between book projects, freelance articles and marketing copy...and just plain thinking?

Mary must have been reading my mind, because during the week or so I had off for the holidays I did a lot of brainstorming on how to take my writing to the next level. I plan to be more pro-active about proposing story and article ideas rather than reacting to assignments that are given to me--which requires a bit of pre-planning, which requires, of course, time! Plus, I've re-tooled an outline for the memoir project I referenced in one of my first blog posts, taking the manuscript into a new direction that incorporates some of the memoir approach while serving as a teaching tool for other persons--like myself--who have struggled to find that vocational fit.

So let 2007 begin, and let it involve lots of well-chosen words!