My New Part-Time Job By Pam Asberry

The first draft of this post appeared on my personal blog, Sometimes It's Cloudy, Sometimes, It's Clear, about a month ago. Then I went to the state music teacher's conference. I contracted a virus and was sick for a week. My Beading To Beat Autism kit arrived (more on that later). I went on a five-day cruise over Thanksgiving vacation. And my resolve fell to the wayside. My NaNoWriMo project remains unfinished at 15,006 words. And that's all the writing I have done.

I try to make the most of every day. I have multiple pages on Facebook and multiple accounts on Twitter. I sell jewelry on Etsy, teach piano lessons on Skype, and have a profile onLinkedIn. I post pictures on Flickr and videos of my students onYouTube. I listen to music on Spotify; I create boards on Pinterest; I write book reviews at Goodreads. I have a MySpace page although I haven't logged in for months. I even have a Google Plus page although I can't imagine it replacing Facebook in my affections.

And I blog. Do I ever. I write two personal blogs - several times a week right on Sometimes It's Cloudy, Sometimes It's Clear and daily at Between Birthdays. I blog twice weekly at Writers Li.P.P., once a month for the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales, and I guest blog here, there, and everywhere.

Social networking is so much fun. I love making friends online almost as much as in person. Blogging is great, too. Writing nonfiction comes easily to me. If it didn't, I would be able to blog as prolifically as I do.

But you know what I want to accomplish more than anything else right now? I want to write an amazing work of fiction and see it published. The old-fashioned way. I want to go on a book tour and do book signings and talk to readers about my work and to writers about craft. But at the rate I'm going, that's not going to happen until I'm about 75. And I don't want to wait that long.

So you know what I'm going to do about it, effective immediately? I'm going to treat my writing like a real job, albeit a part-time job. It's rare for me to take a day off from piano lessons, and I need to view writing the same way, even though I don't get paid for it (yet). My schedule will vary from day to day, depending on my piano teaching schedule, but I'm planning on working six days a week: 2 hours on Monday, 2 hours on Tuesday, 4 hours each Wednesday through Saturday, for a total of 20 hours. And when I am at work, I will be fully dressed and sitting at my desk, saying no to the web candy, doing whatever needs to be done: research, sending query letters, meeting a specific weekly word count goal.

Also, I'm going to take a long, hard look at all main course distractions out there. It's hard for me to admit this, but I really CAN'T do it all.

Now, if you enjoy writing propped up on a pillow in bed with TweetDeck open, I'm not judging you. I'm just saying that isn't working so well for me these days.

Wish me luck on my first day at work. And click HERE to find out more about Beading To Beat Autism and how you can help me support this worthy cause. Happy Holidays!