On Balancing Work, Yourself, and Life

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks on Flickr

Though I've been doing the writing thing for a while, I'm still trying to learn how to best balance work, myself, and life.

Last month I was juggling a lot of jobs: freelancing, the online portion of being an author (for me, blogging and vlogging), and a seasonal part-time job that I adored. Between the three I spent most of my days working from the time I dragged myself out of bed until late in the day; and that was without writing because I was taking a month off after NaNoWriMo. It was exhausting, and there were many days where I didn't get to finish everything on my to do list because I simply didn't have the hours in the day, but it was also really rewarding. I loved every one of my jobs, and together they helped me get through a very expensive month without stressing about the bills.

It also reminded me just how important my day off is.

This month some things have changed—I didn't get to keep the seasonal job due to an underperforming holiday season at my workplace, but I've started (trying) to work on a writing project again. I'd sort of expected I'd have an easier time getting everything I need to done without the seasonal job, but that hasn't really been the case; there have still been times when I didn't get to work on my WIP because I ran out of time—or energy—before I could get to it. On most days, I still work from when I drag myself out of bed in the morning until twelve or so hours later when I'm too tired to do anything more. I still love my jobs, but it's been a little distressing how little I've been able to work on my WIP—which has told me I'll need to rearrange my day so I can get some time in every day. And probably use Twitter less while I'm working. ;)

Probably unsurprisingly to most of you, I am undoubtedly a workaholic. While this means I get a lot done every day and enjoy doing it, it also means that because I set my own hours, if I'm not careful I can easily burn myself out. This is why I've established a single day of the week where I don't permit myself to work; without it, I'm not sure I'd ever take a break at all.

It can be tough to balance work, self-care, and life. As my responsibilities have evolved over the years, I've learned that kind of balance isn't something you ever really master—it's an endless learning process that requires figuring out the way you work best, capitalizing on it, and adjusting your schedule as needed while you take note of what works, what doesn't, and what your needs are. For me, to do lists are my saving grace—they make sure I focus on tasks I need to get done that I'd risk forgetting about or pushing off otherwise.

In the end, I don't think there's a singular answer to how you achieve the balance; it just requires being aware that a balance has to exist in a way that works for you, and reevaluating what is and isn't working from time to time so you can make necessary adjustments along the way.

Striking the balance isn't easy, but when you manage it it's really rewarding to take note of all you've accomplished while still taking care of yourself in whatever ways you need.

How do you balance your work, yourself, and life? 

Twitter-sized bite:

How do you balance work and life? @Ava_Jae shares her experience as an author, freelancer, blogger and YouTuber. (Click to tweet)

Balancing Action with Quiet

Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr

It happened again! I got another lovely question from one of you wonderful readers, who are always so good of pointing out what I haven’t yet written about. (That’s a good thing, by the way. Please continue).

Anyway, today’s question:

I've seen you talk about finding your inner sadist when writing and allowing your characters to fail once in a while. I was wondering: what do you think about allowing peaceful scenes in every so often? A lot of books I've read definitely have beautiful moments, but often they're interrupted and cut short. I've been wondering if it's possible to balance the bad things with beauty, and use peace as a tool for character development. I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

So it turns out, I’ve gotten so caught up in writing about being mean to our characters and pacing and what not that I maybe forgot to talk about the other side of the high-octane balance—the slower, peaceful scenes.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I love writing action-y books. The more fighting, blood, fatal wounds, deaths and near-death experiences, the better. I’ve been known to blow things up and set things on fire just because I was getting bored with a scene.

That being said, even in really exciting, edge-of-your-seat-type books, you need to give your readers (and your characters) some time to recuperate.

Quiet, peaceful and even beautiful scenes are absolutely essential to even the most exciting plots. Readers, like your characters, can get tired of non-stop action if it’s really non-stop. Without slower moments to balance out the faster, crazy-exciting scenes, you can very easily end up with reader burnout. Not to mention the shock and intensity of action scenes fade the more you use them—like any writing spice, the key is not to overdo it.

Now, that’s not to say that the quiet scenes should be boring—even when there isn’t active, injury-producing conflict going on, it’s important to make sure you have some sort of tension throughout the scene. But these slower scenes can be a great time for character development and introspection, as long, of course, as it’s well-balanced.

What do you think? Do you use quiet scenes to balance out more intense moments? 

Twitter-sized bite: 

Do you use quiet scenes to balance out more intense moments? @Ava_Jae writes about the importance of balance. (Click to tweet)

Writing: Mastering the Balance

Photo credit: Digitalnative on Flickr

I received an e-mail the other day asking about how an author can balance having a voice, giving her novel a tone, and allowing her characters to have separate personalities. I’m pretty sure I read the question at least half a dozen times before I had any semblance of an answer.

Balance is one of those things in writing that takes a while to really get down—I’m still working on fine-tuning the balance in my writing myself. Our prose should have voice—but not so much that it drowns out our characters. We need to include detail—but don’t want to bombard our readers with too much. We need a good plot—but a well-formed plot means nothing if our characters are flat.

Balance.

I don’t know about you guys, but my first drafts are rarely balanced. Thinking back to the first draft of my current WIP, I had a lot of plot and action and barely any voice. My love-interest was as cardboard as it gets and my antagonist… well he had potential, but some of his dialogue was embarrassing in retrospect and his motivations were shaky, at best.

Finding balance the first time around in your writing is really hard, and I don’t think most of us get it right immediately. And that’s ok.

Balance doesn’t often flow naturally—it takes some tweaking. Think about anything you’ve ever done that required balance—balancing a soda can on its edge, for example. Chances are, unless you have some ridiculous ninja-like balancing skills, you didn’t just set the can on its edge and walk away—you held onto it and tweaked it until it felt like it might stay, then you let go.

Writing is the same way. Nine out of ten times, the first thing you throw onto paper isn’t going to be perfectly balanced. It’ll take revisions—a round where you focus on getting the voice right, a round where you get the details pitch perfect, another where you focus on dialogue and so on and so forth. In my experience, anyway, balance doesn’t come right away—you tweak your manuscript in every which way until— aha!— you get it right.

It’s not an easy thing to master, but no one ever said writing was easy.

Have you had trouble finding balance in your WIP? Tell us your experience!