Balance

Whether I’m referring to my writing life – or any other aspect of life, for that matter – balance is the key to maintaining productivity, sanity, and joy. 

We’ve all heard catchphrases like “self-care” and keeping a “work-life balance”. These are essential. We all need downtime. Of course, there are seasons when one has to burn the midnight oil, like when a deadline is looming or a book launch is approaching. But if you let crisis mode become habitual, you’ll pay – creatively and even physically. 

I can tell when my life is tipping too much in one direction. I get easily agitated – spinning, as my husband would say. During these times I am less productive (even though I am spending more time on projects) because my mental capacity is diminished. On the other hand, I’ve found that too much inactivity can have a similar effect. I can’t stay in “holiday” mode forever. Soon I start feeling lethargic. Drained. I have no energy or motivation. I need the challenge of a new project. It’s one of the reasons I value NaNoWriMo so much. It keeps me fresh. However, I could never sustain that level of writing intensity all year long. 

I’ve also noticed the necessity of maintaining a balance between writing and all the other things an author is supposed to do. Emails, newsletters, social media, blog posts, podcasts, website maintenance, cross-promotion… The list is almost endless. Some of these tasks I categorize as “marketing” while others are more business-related, BUT everything has its place. Today’s author must be aware of the many moving parts and not get sucked into spending too much time on one thing to the detriment of others. (Social media is often the culprit.)

Like a complex machine, we must strike a balance between marketing, promotion, and business activities (all must be in balance with one another) and the actual writing side of things. But let me break this down even further. Technically, writing this blog post is still writing, but it serves a dual purpose in that it is also a marketing platform of sorts since I’m creating content that I can share online. You can see where the waters begin to get muddy and one really has to think about time allocation…

But I digress. Getting back to the writing side of the equation, I also like to differentiate between writing NEW material and polishing OLD material. I need to balance my writing time between rewriting and editing previously written work for publication and writing new material. I know writers who get so buried in their own perfectionism that they never write anything new. Yes, we want to present our best work to the world, but at some point, we have to release it. Enough is enough. 

I spend a lot of my time editing and rewriting longer work (novels), but the need to keep writing something new is one reason why I continue to write for this blog and for FellowScript magazine. (And InScribe’s professional blog, and my own blog… LOL!) Rewriting is fun! It is necessary! It is important! But we must balance our editing and polishing with writing new material to keep our minds and writing voices fresh. 

All of these writing-related activities must then fit into the greater balance of life. There is work, family, church, household chores, devotional life… You get it. It’s why balance is so important. 

This was originally posted on InScribe Writers Online on February 21, 2023