Desperate for Balance

As I crossed the NaNo finish line, my husband clued me on on something: he was feeling neglected. Not just a little neglected, but crisis-neglected. I was . . . a bit shocked.

If you've followed my blog at all or if you care to check out the My Hubby tag, you know two things: 1) my husband is about the most supportive man in the world, and 2) we have next to no interests in common. He will never enjoy spending time with me while I'm writing or reading: he doesn't write, he doesn't read, and he doesn't understand why I like it. I will rarely enjoy spending time with him doing the things he loves: I don't ski, fish, hunt, or understand why he likes it.

For over 12.5 years of marriage, we've made it work anyway.

But it--whatever it was--isn't working anymore.

Last month, I thought everything was right with my marriage. Now I know there need to be changes or things will get very, very wrong.

So I need advice, wise readers. I know a lot of you are married and are very happy. Do you have advice for a writer who wants it all? Is it possible to have a day job, happy husband, content children, relaxing reading and STILL have time to write? How do you do it?

If your spouse isn't a writer, what do you do to make sure you spend time with them? How do you involve them in your writing life (if at all)? If you have two hours of free time after the kids are in bed, you haven't written anything all day, and the spouse is watching a show you don't like . . . what do you do?

I've had exactly one idea to fix this: we're going to learn how to play the guitar together. Hubby has expressed interest and I've always thought it would be fun. Might not have been a priority in my life, but if we both enjoy it . . . well, it has a leg up on every other non-bedroom activity in the world. This, naturally, will take even more time away from writing, but it should provide some forced togetherness with the love of my life, and that ain't bad.

I've pondered whether I can give up writing entirely. Hubby assures me he'll never ask it of me--he just wants some balance. I'm not entirely sure I can give it up without being miserable. I can go long stretches without it, but I need a creative outlet, and I love words. (Lovely, lovely words.) I'm relatively certain I can kill that part of me, but . . . then part of me will be dead. And the years I've spent on my writing will have been wasted. And I don't want that. I still want to be a published writer. Preferably one who can afford to buy her husband a ranch.

So help? Ideas? Advice? Wisdom from on high? Thoughts on where to buy a couple of cheap beginner guitars?

2013 Note: Thanks everyone, for your awesome advice. Though it turns out the problem was too big for advice, I really appreciate the help.

Reading Woes

Back in April 2008, at the encouragement of Robyn Carr (oh, yeah, lookit me: she's my mentor) I started keeping track of the books I read . Between April 1 and December 28, I read 125 books.

The next year, my spreadsheet got a bit more elaborate (as do all my spreadsheets). In 2009, while working sporadically on my WIP, I read 173 books, 15,632 pages, and averaged 157.9 pages a day.

In 2010, I wrote most of my first draft--and finished it--but still read 138 books, 47,515 pages, and averaged 130.54 pages a day.

Now I'm editing my WIP and this year, so far, I've read 22 books. 7,179 pages. Averaging 85.46 pages a day. My spreadsheet now keeps track of book genres (most books are more than one genre): 12 YA, 13 Fantasy, 10 Urban, 14 Romance, 1 Dystopian (MATCHED), 1 Horror (THE MERIDIANS), 0 Non-Fiction.

Pathetic, yes?

I'm happy with all the other things I'm doing. I am. I'm managing a full-time career (the day-job), trying to start up another full-time career (writing), social networking, blogging, running my online crit group for David Farland's Writer's Groups, critiquing for my group (Meredith, I swear, I'll get your novel crit to you by the end of the month!), holding down two church jobs (teaching Gospel Doctrine and Cub Committee Chair) and being a wife and a mother to three young boys. I sleep 7-8 hours per night (or I get sick). It's a full, busy, and happy life.

But I sure did enjoy this week, when I got too sick to sit at the computer for long periods, and all I could do was lie in bed and read. (Sleep? Who needs sleep?) I MISS reading. I look at Jessica Day George and all she's reading (seriously, that girl is a reading fiend--check her out on Goodreads) and I'm so jealous. I mean, there are hundreds of reasons to be jealous of JDG, but mostly I want to be able to read as much as she does. I'm also jealous of my friend Susan Jensen, who has already read 39 books this year (including mine :))--and that while still writing HER WHOLE FIRST DRAFT.

So, I'm still trying to find balance. Work, writing, family, service, networking, reading, sleep. I watch almost no TV. I hardly ever go anywhere.

Everyday, excellent books are released, and I just DON'T HAVE TIME to read them all. It's tragic.

So how do you do it? How do you decide which books to read? Do you carve out specific time each day for reading, or just grab time as you can find it? How many books have YOU read this year? (Go ahead--rub it it.)

(Also, if anyone wants a great spreadsheet to keep track of their books--with genre--let me know....)

Choosing What's Important OR Why I'll Never Be Good At Journaling

When I got my first set of scriptures with my shiny new red scripture marker pencil (how's that for a string of adjectives?), I immediately set to work underlining the important scriptures. Three completely red pages later, I looked back and wondered why I bothered marking at all. The scriptures weren't easier to find or read now that they were all red. If I wanted to find a scripture on faith, I still had to look in the index. So I stopped marking scriptures unless a teacher suggested one as "markable." Or if it was a scripture mastery scripture and therefore in my best interests to be able to quickly locate in the event of a scripture chase.

Lest you think this was just a youthful inability to identify truly important things... it has never gotten any better. In desperation, at the age of 21, I developed an elaborate system of marking, that labeled each word according to topic. Faith and repentance were green. Prophets and references to records were light blue. Christ was orange-red. I had a pack of 24 scripture markers and all but white had a designated purpose in my scriputures. Reading them was more akin to coloring. I spent more time deciding what color each word should be than I did deciding how I felt about each one. I wish I could report that I've finally found a happy medium.

Elana Johnson posted a list of tips for writers recently, including "Write in a Journal." I'm really REALLY hoping this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, because I'm just as bad at picking the important parts of my life as I am at picking the important parts of the scriputures. During the very infrequent periods in my life when I've kept a journal, it took hours to maintain. Also, it quickly devolved into a blow-by-blow account of contacts with my current crush. Great fodder for YA? Certainly. I'd love to locate that journal and read it... before burying it deep in the earth. Was my crush the most important thing that happened to me during those months? Probably not. Just the most obsessive.

Right now my life is busier than it has ever been. I'm maintaining a full-time career, trying to start up another one (Best-Selling Novelist--have you heard of any openings?), I have three church jobs (Gospel Doctrine teacher, Cub Scout Committee Chair, and Visiting Teacher), three young sons, and a house that doesn't clean itself. Oh, and a husband who likes to get attention at regular intervals. If each day were twice as long, I'd still need more time. Girl's gotta read sometime, right? So for now and for the forseeable future, this blog is my only journal. Long live the internet.

Which brings me to my final, startlingly happy point: choosing what's important in fiction is worlds easier than choosing what's important in the scriptures or in my own life. Why? Because I don't know the future of my own life. Because I don't know the future of my own life, it is impossible to know what to put in a journal. What will I want to look back on later? *shrugs* Can't know. (Since my crush wasn't my future husband, it seems I was very wrong to think it would be important to record every word he said to me.) Which scriptures will I want to lean on in the coming months and years? How the heck should I know that? Will I most need scriptures on patience or on pride? On balance or on self-improvement? (I know which I'd rather need....)

Fiction, happily, is different. I know where my characters will be a few weeks down their lives. I know which experiences they need to have at the beginning of the book so they'll react appropriately at the end. I didn't always know this, but now that I'm editing, the picture is a lot more clear. It's still hard to winnow out the throw-away experiences, but at least I have a template--the end of the book--I can use to help me figure it out.

Editing is cool.

On Emergency Rooms, Revisions, and Balance

In the last two months, my nearest-and-dearest have visited various emergency rooms (or the equivalent) 10 times:

1. My 9-year-old son lacerated and compression-fractured his toe, requiring stitches and a walking boot.
2. My 3-year old nephew broke his arm, requiring a cast.
3. The same nephew broke the same arm again, this time in the growth plate, requiring surgery.
4. The same nephew's brother fell during Nephew 1's doctor's appointment and broke his face, possibly requiring surgery on his nose.
5. My husband's father's mother had heart issues and spent the night in the hospital, prompting family-wide panic.
6. Same grandma back in hospital a few days later after putting too much energy into putting her affairs in order and not enough into resting.
7. My mother-in-law tore her knee up skiing--ligaments traumatized.
8. Nephew 1&2's mother tore her knee up, tearing ligaments.
9. My sister had an ectopic pregnancy, requiring surgery.
10. Same sister now has pneumonia, requiring an overnight hospital stay.

Apparently, bad things don't just come in threes.

Meanwhile, my own life seems charmed--I personally keep dodging disaster. (Yeah, got me some nice wood to knock on right here....) I did a 180 on the freeway in Salt Lake on my way home, ended up stopped in the fast lane, pointing the wrong way, and drove away moments later, completely unscathed. All the cars behind me managed to miss me--even the truck with the snow plow on the front. I got to moderate at LTUE, talk to more authors for Authors' Advisory, and I spend all my free time quite seflishly pounding away at my book, reading the books of those I'll interview soon, and getting to know the other wonderful writers of the World Wide Web.

And I feel guilty. My 9-year-old had to hang out with the DVD player at the ski lodge last weekend because mommy was at a conference while everyone else was skiing. When my MIL busted her knee on that trip, another driver would have been awfully handy. My husband and sons visited his grandma the same weekend... without me. When we got news of my sister, Jerry asked if we needed to head down to be with her. I looked up from the computer and assured him all would be well, no reason to fuss. I sent her a few texts and spoke to her husband on the phone. I've let my husband handle the health updates on his own family. I'm a total slacker, family-wise.

You'd think, with all I'm ignoring to revise this monster, that I'd be farther along. Instead, I didn't revise at all last week (traveling will do that, I hear) and I've spent all this week working on ONE CHAPTER! It's a mildly important chapter, sure, but really? One? I finally laid it to rest last night and I'm moving on tonight, but if next month goes at all like this month has, revision-wise, I still won't have my second draft done by the end of March.

Which is really depressing.

So anyone have advice? How long does your family tolerate your absence while you hide in your writer's cave? How do you balance the duties of a wife, mother, sister, daughter, and granddaughter while still making forward progress on your writing career? Those of you who, like me, have a day-job as well--how do you balance the precious time you have left after you get home? How often does your bathroom get cleaned? (If you don't answer that, I won't either, deal?)

While writing the last paragraph above, my sons brought me their Shrek doll, which, untill recently, was stuffed with tiny white plastic beads. They want him fixed. I think I might take an hour to watch some TV, fix the doll before he completely bleeds out... and maybe even fold some laundry.

Then I'll feel guilty about not writing, instead. *sigh*