I got the good news that my laptop repair is finished, which means they got the parts a few days earlier than expected. The bad news is that the email I received said they “REPLACED FANS AND REINSTALLED OS AND ALL DRIVERS.” A part of me cried a little inside knowing that when it gets back here in a few days time, I need to do a full install of every piece of software and all the supporting files back on my machine. The other part is like, “this is fine, we braced for this and it’s all backed up on your shiny new external hard drive you bought specifically for this worst case scenario.”

However, with the upcoming return of my laptop I am looking forward to an uptick in my writing again (hopefully!). I figured since I am bracing for the software install-a-palooza that is coming, I would take some time to talk about what my days actually look like while trying to write a crazy amount of words in a year. My word goal is crazy for me on a few levels, so let’s talk about why.

Monday is the worst day of the week. I don’t care who you are, if you work weekends, then pretend your first day back from a day off is your Monday. This day is the worst. Unless you are super passionate about your job or are the most bubbly human being I never want to meet without a lot of coffee in me, most of us utterly hate this day. Monday is the day everyone and their grandma comes out of the woodwork with problems, yourself included. Mondays are stressful and I often don’t achieve half or more of what I set out to do on Mondays.

Tuesday through Thursday are a bit better. There is a bell shape in how much work sucks and doesn’t suck. It’s easier come Wednesday then Thursday we are on the downward slope again towards it sucking. Fridays are great, we love Fridays! Fridays mean the weekend is coming and we have some dreamt about free time coming our way. Now, that’s just regarding work, which I am scheduled to do for 9.5 hours a day Monday through Thursday and 5 hours on Friday. I am also going to be starting a new position soon that will add me to an on call rotation sometime in around May. So, from the time I wake up until the time I break out of my work uniform, I am not really getting in much for words. Sometimes I sneak off to write on my lunch breaks, but with my other half home too, I don’t usually get a lot of success in the words column.

After hours, lots of time in the after hours? No, not really. I have a toddler who is very much still dependent on parents. Can’t the other half deal with the toddler so I can write? Oh sure, but which parent do you think is the most appealing? The one who is willing to play or the one who is hiding somewhere trying to do something without the toddler? Oh of course the one hiding is way more interesting. So, until that little mini clone of me passes out for the night, which is around 9 PM most nights, I am not getting in any words.

Writing actually starts somewhere after 10 PM. I give myself a little time to decompress from the day and the toddler before I start. But I have to work at 7:30 AM, so starting at 10 PM means I don’t get a lot of writing time before I need to get myself to bed so I can sort of function the next day.

WEEKENDS! Who doesn’t love weekends? I definitely love my weekends. Remember that talk about the toddler? So does the toddler! So I can maybe write during the 1.5-2 hour nap we get in the middle of the day, if a nap is successful, and then back to that 10 PM through bedtime writing time. Did we talk about video games yet? No? Okay let’s touch on that a little too. I’m a gamer who married a gamer. I work full time, I raise a toddler with my partner, and I am a gamer on top of being a writer in my free time. So Friday nights after toddler passes out are dedicated game night with our friends and Saturday nights are dedicated to social games with other friends (some of these friends may overlap).

So how the hell do I plan to hit my outrageous writing goal for 2021? By sneaking in words anywhere I can. If I need to vent my feelings out to myself, I plan to write in my private journal. If I need to vent my feelings in the form of a writing prompt, I will take one and write that outside of my current project. I am planning to sneak in words any damn place I can find a time slot that will fit into this crazy schedule of a life I have now. Does this mean some other balls are going to drop? Hell yeah it does. Balls? Why am I going on about balls now? There’s this wonderful twitter thread about an author answering a question about balancing kids and writing. I will never forget it. The TL;DR on it is that some balls are glass and some are plastic and you need to know what things in your life are glass and which are plastic so you can be sure you are saving all the glass balls. If a few plastic ones drop while you catch those glass ones, then so be it.

You can read this thread here.