Priorities are a B*&%^

Posted on by under About Me, blogging101

So, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth (for those that care 🙂 ) I’ve just hit a wall where I had to ask myself some tough questions.  

I work 6 days and 50 hours a week.

I have a beautiful wife and a 4 year old daughter.

I have a novel I am trying to edit.

I have a mountain of books I want to read.

I have a strict sleep/exercise regiment.

I also now have a blog…

 

The complication I have been faced with more and more recently is the age old one of, “something has to give”

When I sat down to honestly access my priorities, blogging frequency lost out.

I have had to ask myself, “why am I blogging?”  The answer to this is the same as it has been since the day I began blogging: to build a readership and engage with people who read in order to have a base to work from should I ever reach the stage of being able to publish my novel.

Along the way I have come across a slew of other benefits from blogging, but it also sucked me into a bit of a vortex.

So what are my priorities then?  Well, my work time (from 9 to 6) and my family time (6 to 9 – which includes my part of the house cleaning and lunch prep for myself and my daughter) leaves me with 2 hours of free time each night because I have to be in bed by 11 in order to get 7 hours of sleep so I can get up at 6 and exercise.

So, 2 hours.  That’s it.  In that 2 hours I have to accomplish three major things:

1: write

2: read

3: blog

Now, granted I can kill two birds with one stone and use other blogs as my ‘reading’ time, but all of you book lovers out there know how important books are to a creative mind.  They are the fuel that makes the fire burn, and without them it’s harder for my creative gears to keep turning.

Over the last few weeks I have read next to nothing from my bookshelf and done nearly zero editing.  So my novel sits, rotting away, and my books are gathering dust.  This has lead me to the sad realisation that I’ve let this blog drown out my real priorities.

 

All of this is to say that, while I will still be on here and publishing, my furious pace will be drawn back quite a bit.

I need to spend 45 minutes to an hour editing each day.

That will give me 30 minutes for the blog and 30 minutes to read.  I will probably drag out my posts over a few days to get my whole thoughts together, and that’s going to mean posting less.  I will also have to split my ‘blog’ time evenly between writing and reading, so… prepare for snail pace…

That being said, the staple pieces will still appear as on schedule as possible.

A Story from 10 Words will still be published every Sunday.  That’s my day off, so I can manage that time as I want.

Fiction Friday will still be running, but I am cutting back to one series for now:  Downfall will be the only continuing series.  When it finishes, I will move forward with Othersiders from where it has stopped.

My opinion pieces will still come out, albeit more sporadically.  Those will have to be developed little by little over the week and then dropped when I can.

 

All this being said, I want to thank each and everyone of the people who faithfully read this blog – you are the reason I made it in the first place.  All of your love and support over the past two months is the reason I became so attached to this blog and wanted to post something new everyday!

I hope I can get time to read all the amazing stuff you are all putting out everyday, but if some of it gets passed me now, it’s not from a lack of love and respect.

Thank you all again for your support and understanding, and here’s hoping I can get that right balance in my everyday to keep the content coming.

Happy writing!

21 thoughts on “Priorities are a B*&%^”

  1. I’m glad you are still around and not been abducted by aliens or sucked into a vortex…..
    And I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds that blogging sometimes takes a back seat! I hope you get on top of things and that you will find more blogging time soon!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Hang in there! I agree with you that there are a lot of other priorities in life that should be ahead of writing a blog post. There are days when we just don’t have enough interstitial time, so I look forward to when you do chance upon it!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. I don’t think there’s any need for apology. Juggling everything that comes with life is incredibly difficult…and you can’t do it all. Believe me, I work 45hrs a week with a two hour round trip commute, have a 3.5 year old and a 4 month old, and have 1.5hrs at night to myself…I totally get where you’re coming from and sympathize with your dilemma. You can only do what you can do, and I doubt anyone who follows you and your blog will forget about you because you don’t furiously post. Your stories and posts are great, and, like you said, reading is an important thing because it helps nurture and grow our minds. Keep on keeping on, and I hope you find your right balance.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. How well have you scheduled time for your priorities! I suck at scheduling and go with the flow.

    May be you could dedicate alternate Sundays to prepare your content and then schedule the posts? I agree though. There are lot of other things in life that take higher priority than blogging.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. I think this happens to a lot of writers. Sitting at the desk, fighting with the novel is such a lonely business; blogging isn’t and that makes it so seductive. It’s too easy to just focus on the blog because people react to your writing almost instantly. It takes a while to get the balance right.

    Blogging every day kinda works for me because it takes me excruciatingly long to edit my novel. But I’m still glad that I scaled down at the end of January.

    Take your time, you’ll get there 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I was thinking about why blogging is so seductive but Sonya got it spot on. “Feedback is instant.” Quite simple and quite true.Plus sitting to create material (even pieces shorter than novels) is lonely. That being said, Keep keeping on, Teressina. I think it’s just sad that our passions seem to get in the way of life or don’t pay the bills. I believe perseverance will pay (literally and figuratively). Ciao…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • That’s exactly it! Editing I get no feedback or reinforcement to keep going other than the voice in my head saying, “good job!”

      Blogging is more instant gratification.

      I am not a concise person, so I tend to run on and on (which I need to fix), so maybe the key is making one page max limitations on myself… Hmmm…. Maybe that’s something to consider tweaking as well…

      Thanks for reading and the kind words!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  6. It’s like you’re in my head! I feel like I should apologize for not writing more but I barely have time to do that. Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for your honest posts because they help me realize that I am not alone and sometimes that is what I need most.

    Balance is important. Family is important. Doing what you love is important. And prioritizing is important. I look forward to your posts, whenever they may come.

    Love, light, and peace to you, my friend. ❤ 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. How many times have I wished that I could either stop time for everyone in the world but myself, or that I could split myself into multiple iterations so that one of me could write and edit all day with the other “me”s worked and cooked/cleaned/nurtured, etc. Alas, there is only one Jon Phipps, and I think you have your priorities pretty straight. That being said, I’ll still be looking forward to the Battle Royales and updates to Downfall!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Will get the next round of BR and Downfall out this week 😉 those two I’ve got prepped, just need a bit of polish.

      Thank you as always, brother, for all your support. I’m going to email you today or tomorrow about the logo! Thank you so much for taking that on for me!

      PS – we need robots already.

      Like

      Reply

  9. I really admire your discipline and will enjoy your blog when you write, but really, the most important things are who is present in your life, and what you do do nourish your soul. Be well.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment