9 October 2011

BALANCING YOUR WRITING AND SOCIAL MEDIA


Social media is a wonderful thing.  It enables us to interact with our readers, advertise our work, as well as keep in touch with family and friends.  But have you ever felt that it is taking over?

The merry-go-round
You jump on and don’t get off.  It can change all the plans you had for your day.  That book you are writing isn’t getting written.  At least that has been my experience, so I decided to do something about it.

Setting limits to get the balance right
For me there were two options.  To spend my mornings writing or my afternoons writing.  This wasn’t a difficult choice because I knew that if I turned the internet on first thing in the morning, I would invariably get caught up, and never get around to my afternoon’s writing.

This is what I came up with.
Resist the urge to connect to the internet and spend the morning writing.
Depending on other commitments, blog writing, postings and maintenance of the site, in the early afternoon.
Emails, Twitter and other social media between 3-4pm.

Have you  found that your writing time has shrunk? 

13 comments:

  1. yes, sometimes I feel the time to write my shrink, probably because of something else that can not avoid.

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Erikj. I think the answer is probably to prioritise. At least that is what I'm going to try and do.

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  3. Jill, thanks for this bit of advice. Once I log on and start tweeting, FBing, blogging and such, many hours have gone by. My brain is tired and my writing is pushed to another day. I'm going discipline myself to try this. Thanks again!

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  4. For me it's when I'm doing a blog post and then I want to look up something on the online dictionary, then something comes up and I'm looking into something else. it's such a viscious cycle you know. I'm a new follower from book blogs. Here, http://aurora-rants.blogspot.com/

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  5. Thanks for your comment, Aurora, and I agree, it's like getting on a merry-go-round. The answer may be to ask ourselves whether we have the time to spend before we get on!

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  6. What an excellent post! You have a great idea to write in the morning and then do social media in the afternoon. You are right- it can take up a lot of time.

    I found you through Book Blogs and signed up to follow you. When you have a chance- please stop by and follow the blog for my middle grade novel that I am hoping to get published. http://thesecretdmsfilesoffairdaymorrow.blogspot.com/

    Take care-
    Jess- although I may show up as Fairday, the main character from my novel. I can't figure out why that happens and I can't fix it. :)

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  7. Thanks for your comment, Jess, and for your follow on Book Blogs. I'm glad you liked my post. I think many of us have the same problem with social media. I'll be visiting your blog.

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  8. I am trying to find some sort of schedule to stick with. Because I easily get caught up in what I am doing, whether it is in Social Media or writing a Blog Post. And even though I have improved, I probably still spend a bit too much time on both. Hehe.

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  9. Thanks for your comment, Ropcorn. I know what you mean. It's so easy to get caught up in what we're doing. So much so that I have a list now, of things that I have to get done. I choose a couple each day and make sure I do them. That way I get some sort of satisfaction.

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  10. I definitely spend more time checking out blogs and social media than I do writing lately. I've only just started seriously blogging in the past two months, and I'm still trying to figure out how to balance everything! I'm looking forward to NaNoWriMo though, so I have motivation to get back to writing (which I want to do anyway!)

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  11. Hi Cortney and thanks for commenting. The only way I have found to make headway on the present book I'm writing is to only connect to the internet at certain times of the day when it won't impinge on other things I'm doing.

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  12. Great advice on balancing writing and dealing with marketing and the social media Jill. I got so caught up with the social aspects I got frustrated and realized I had to set some boundaries. I feel much better about it and feel what I do write and blog about now comes out a lot better if I don't feel so rushed to get it done so I can get something else done. It can become a vicious circle you don't feel good about and why do that to yourself? Sometimes we have to force ourselves to slow down and smell the roses.

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  13. I totally agree, Crazy Fox. It can be difficult to do but we feel so much better for it. And as you say, our writing benefits from setting those boundaries.

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