Fowl Language
Well, I should be in my summer job by now. Can’t be sure because I’m writing this in late May and haven’t put in for the last two days of my school job off. There’s a bit of overlap, which is slightly frustrating. Nothing I can do about it and my school job takes the top priority.
So, what am I doing? I’m working as the game room director for a camp. My hours are full day with some overtime when I can grab it. Goes until mid/late August, so I’m going to be running ahead. Should be a lot of fun since it’s going to be doing a lot with kids and games. I get to make up various tournaments and events. I’ve been tinkering with that a lot over the last few months. Fingers crossed that my ideas work and I help make some summer memories.
The ‘downside’ is that I won’t be able to use my cellphone for most of the day. That means no tweets, blog comments, emails, or anything else outside of early morning and the evening. So, I won’t be reacting to a lot of stuff as quickly as I usually do. It’s going to feel weird since I use my phone as a watch, so I’ll see things building up. I might get to do a quick check during lunch, but that will only be emails and blog. Twitter is going to be getting pushed back a bit more. Not that I was getting anything out of it. I haven’t sold much and the free page reads are nearly dead. So, I don’t really feel like I have anything to salvage outside of the blog.
It’s going to be really hard to carve out writing time. I’m hoping to schedule most of the posts for July and August by the end of June, which clears that up. Beyond that, I’ll have a few weekends for writing, but that isn’t much if I’m exhausted and having to do other things. Maybe I can get in a bunch of parts for the ‘fantasy writing’ book, but fiction novels are definitely out. Hard to justify carving out writing time when I can’t even give books away. Just burnt out on trying to figure out what to do since I lack the money to do an expensive marketing campaign and the time to do anything big. Guess I’m back to the life of working and wishing someone would discover me because I sure as hell don’t have the skills to shout loud enough.
This is becoming a downer. I’m excited about the summer job, but I’ll admit that there is a part of me who misses writing. It took me 6 months to finish a 16 chapter book when it used to take me 1.5 months. I can’t get any outlining/writing done at either job because I’m always doing something. The other stuff going on in my life isn’t helping since that sucks my time at home. For anyone about to say I will find time, I want to point out that I have about 100 books outlined. I come from a generation that doesn’t believe retirement is in our future too, so time will be scarce for most of my life.
Anyway, enjoy your summer. I’m going to be here as often as I can and keep the ball rolling with posts. ‘Derailing Bedlam’ is still going and I might turn Teaser Tuesday into something else for the summer. No idea what. Feel free to make a suggestion if there’s something you want to see on the blog. Always curious to see what people want to see on this thing.
Legends of Windemere 
Charles, with your imagination, I can;t think of anyone better to be running a game room with kids, plus you might have a real audience there for your books. Do read to them! Enjoy the summer – I think it’s a great way to refresh and energize. I am taking some days off as well, hard as it is.
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Reading to them isn’t an option. It’s all games this summer. Besides, the ones who would listen are too young for my books and the older ones wouldn’t really care. Focused more on making fun events.
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without crossing the “allowed” line at work, I would love to know the games you create for the kids and how they were received. Just a thought.
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I’ll keep people posted. Probably won’t do the first one until after July 4th week. Gives me time to figure stuff out.
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Yay.
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Wow! That job seems tailor made for you!
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One would hope. We’ll see how it goes.
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It sounds like you have a great summer lined up, Charles.
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Thanks. It’ll be busy. Should be fun too.
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Charles, you’re imagination will kick in for those summer camp games! Let us know what you come up with, and how the kids like them! Happy thoughts! 📚🎶 Christine
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Thanks.
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Sounds great fun. And a challenge for sorting out games multiple ages. Enjoy it.
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Thanks. It’s not going as planned though.
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I so feel for you! I’m glad you found summer work that’s in your field. But, I’m going to be a little bit hard on you, too.
One thing we writers have to do is defend our writing time. You are complaining, but you aren’t defending your time. So I urge you to really look at your schedule. Where do you have gap times? Days when your son is with your ex. Commute time on the bus. Take a notebook with you at those times, or look into a notepad app for your cel phone that will allow you to save documents on the cloud and then download them to a laptop.
If people want to come in and talk to you or ask you to do errands, tell them to wait. Or, go to a mall, coffee shop, library — anywhere you are out of sight from the people who interrupt you. If they call, let it go to voice mail. If they text, don’t answer. “Oh, sorry, the building I was in blocked your signal.”
Then if you have 15 minutes at lunch or whatever, ALWAYS write at that time. Your mind will adjust to whatever time you have available. The creativity will start to flow as you approach that time. You often say that you feel tired. I get it. But even if you get one sentence, write it. One sentence becomes one paragraph. One paragraph becomes one page. One page a day, and pretty you’ve finished a novel.
This is me with my pom-poms. (A truly terrifying image, if you ever saw me in person.) Give me at C! H! A! R! L! E! S! You can do this, but you have to fight for it.
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And I’m going to pose a rebuttal because you don’t really know my life. I have NO free time! I’m not exaggerating. I drive to work and back. I’m not allowed to take my phone out at camp or I get fired. The weekends are free only if I scream and yell at people. That’s if I’m not sick or exhausted from the week. Telling people to wait gets me nowhere. They either argue and leave me angry or come back a few minutes later.
I’m trying to write a book. 15 minutes is nothing and I would need my laptop. That one sentence means nothing with my style because I’d get back to it and have to struggle with regaining the flow. That’s if I get the time anyway because lunch isn’t a solitary activity. At school, I’m in the faculty lounge with people. At camp, I’m surrounded by kids. Your advice would result in nothing more than more frustration for me. Not everyone has a clear 15 minutes in a day and many can’t use that time for creativity that feels worthwhile.
Sorry for the bluntness, but I’ve been trying these things throughout the year. There’s no respect for what I do. In fact, I’m answering this while being repeatedly talked to a lot fruit and my lunch. I’ve asked for time twice and they simply start talking to me at louder volumes from another room. This is what I battle against and it leaves me annoyed. I lose time cooling down and that pretty much kills my day. Fighting leaves me licking my wounds and gaining Pyrrhic victories here. I get the time, but at the cost of my energy and focus.
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Actually, that sounds like a great summer. None of us are doing much this time of year, so you have that. I haven’t sold a single copy in a month, and not one page read for two weeks. I am goofing around with a project in spare moments, but it’s not something I’m pushing hard on. My “real” goal is to whip the two I have into shape for their releases. I think gaming with kids is a great position for you.
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Summer is always a drought. Nobody wants to read in the sun anymore? I don’t get to play the games with the kids. Just watch and try to give them tips on the older ones. They look at me funny.
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When you’re a teacher, working summer camp is fun and a welcome break. Enjoy!
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True. Though I keep slipping into wanting to show them how the old games work.
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Yes!! Hubby refuses to part with our Nintendo Super Mario Brothers game. 1980’s. 😀
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Ex-wife owned the old Nintendo. So all I have is a PS2 and a broken SNES.
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Bummer! But you still have good stuff.
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Not much for a 9-year-old though.
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True!
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Consider this a fallow season for your brain. Let fertilizer trickle through under a hot sun, and by fall, you should be ready to plant the seeds for new writing projects. There! Try to scrub that awful analogy from your mind! And have a good summer.
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The problem with that is things aren’t going to get any easier in the Fall. It’s going to be a busy school year again. I might be going full tilt until a short 6 day period at the end of August. Time is always the problem. I’m hoping to get a little planning done during the summer, but it’s going to be dumb luck if I get very far.
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