Balance

Balance
from SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent)

I want to blame my lack of blogging on Hurricane Isaac just pounding my city, but all I got was a little bit wet :( I sure hope everyone else gets off so easy.

I love blogging, I really do, but lately I’ve felt like it has been one epic fail for me. I knew the move would take all my time, but I really thought once I got settled down things would get right back on track and I would be blogging 5 times a week like normal. But it just hasn’t happened that way.

There are days when I don’t touch my key board, and when I do I want to be writing. So I’m going to go back in time about a year, when I was blogging not every day and only when I had time or something worthwhile to say (but that is debatable :)

I’m hoping this will ease a little of the “you must be superwoman” pressure I put on myself. I need to learn balance, so this is my attempt.

Now I want to know—How to you balance blogging with the rest of your life?

-Angie

P.S. I’m not going to lie, the whole “beware the pictures” thing has really hit me hard. I miss them L

What is success—really?

Not a picture of me :)

My kids and I have been sick for a week, so if I’ve been a little absent from the blog-o-shere, I’m sorry.

NaNoWriMo kicked my butt. I ended with 22, 039—which is good, but obviously short of my goal. I keep telling myself that it is 22K more than I had in October, but somehow it still feels like a failure.

I’m a bit of an overachiever, so less than perfect is never good enough. And I always make the mistake of doing too much at once.

Last month I—

• Remodeled my bathroom
• Started a new diet and exercise program (and lost 10 lbs)
• Wrote 22k
• Was sick for a week.
• Had sick kids for a week.
• Hosted Thanksgiving at my house.
• Read 5 books
• Did hours of house work
• Finished all my Christmas shopping

I look at this list and in my mind I know I accomplished tons, but why does it feel like I failed?

AUGGH!!! Am I crazy? Someone help. I’m going to lie down...I'm still kind of sick.

-Angie

The Perfect Storm

I've questioned the sanity of combining NaNoWriMo with one of the biggest Holiday months of the year. For most of us, last week was a bust. We were eating pie, cooking turkey and visiting with friends and family. I was either too busy or too sleepy to even think about working out my next plot point or adding descriptive setting to my latest scene.

So, I asked Angie, "Why can't we do this in January? Or March? Why November; when Thanksgiving cuts into our precious thirty days and Christmas is knocking at our doors?"

Well, I have a theory. I believe November provides the Perfect Storm. Not only are we attempting to put our novels down on paper, but we embark on a great balancing act. We must write, and be a mother, perhaps a hostess, or a guest, a cook, an in-law, or a savvy shopper, a dishwasher, a wife, a father--the list goes on and on and on. We are put to the test during this month. The demands on our time and attention mount. The stresses and pressures of the season threaten to shake our resolve and our focus. But like Elizabeth Bennett, I believe our 'courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate..." us! I believe that we can accomplish more than we think, and this NaNo challenge is the perfect proving ground.

Whether we walk away from this with the full 50,000 words or not, we've done it! And if you're like me, you've stretched, grown and progressed during these last thirty days. I'm going to fall short of my goal, but I have no regrets. In fact, I'm full of gratitude for this experience. I've learned so much and made a humongous stride towards completing my next novel.

Congratulations to all of you NaNo-ites! We've nearly made it! Good luck on the next forty-eight hours! And good luck to everyone who is plugging away at your own goals that reach far above and beyond NaNoWriMo.

-- Sara Bulla