How to manage time

I am overwhelmed, staring at the clock on my laptop. Picking up my phone to check the time in case the laptop is telling lies. Making my way to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee and then, yes then, I will get started.

But, get started on what? I sigh as I jiggle the kettle to try and make the dodgy connection work, and that welcoming, 'hello I'm about to fulfill all your coffee wants and desires glow,' spring to life.

Illumination fills the condensation filled tube which was once clear, before, in my eagerness to encourage a quicker boil, I fill from the hot tap. The ping from my phone drags me away from melancholy of kettles passed their best.

Reaching with an eagerness which is too exaggerated for a notification on a phone. The loneliness of homeworking in full effect, the notification reminds me what I am procrastinating about whilst making the fifth cuppa of the morning.

This author is not suffering from writers' block, in 2022 we have a new kid on the block. We have the social media fatigue. Oh shush! I can hear you sniggering, hear me out before you condemn my words as a tree hugging, millennial. Authors of all ages are suffering from this.

As the lines blur between self and traditional publishing, authors need an audience. This is a fact, whether they write short stories, fiction, nonfiction, articles or anything in between.

If that person stood at the kettle debating whether to make tea or coffee wants people to read what they write, and believe it or not this is generally what all authors aspire to. Then they need willing readers.

Let's start with Vocal, people do not miraculously land on your work and tell all their friends about it. You need to shout it from the rooftops, read other peoples work and engage in and out of the Vocal platform through various methods. Here in lies a problem, which our author will come back to.

Next we have the time to write, let alone think of what to write about and our author loves this part. Dreaming up characters, plots, twists and turns. Even killing people off, breaking hearts and filling others with hope. Planning, writing and editing takes time.

Back to the audience, agents, readers, publishers want to know what others think of your work. This doesn't apply if you are a celebrity and that doesn't need to be an A lister, any lister will do. (Sung to the theme of, any dream will do.) Where does our author find these people? Family, friends do not an author make sadly, no matter how many copies you tell them your mum has promised to buy.

A website, no matter how beautiful is not a magnet, it requires SEO, keywords and awesome copy. Yes, our poor author sits before her web developer wishing to be caught up in their pages of characters and plots when the developer says those infamous words...

"You're the author."

In their head the poor writer screams, "but I am not a marketer for the love of all that is holy!"

The agents and publishers ask questions our author is not prepared for,

"What have you written?"

"Where are you published?"

"What competitions have you won?"

Oh no! I need to win competitions too? When will this damn kettle boil?

"How engaged is your social media audience?"

Kettle finally boils, tea is the decision. This involves, sugar and milk allowing more time to...yes, to avoid the list. This ever growing list of priorities, everything is a priority for our tea drinker. Lost in a world, out of their depth. They just want to write, to share their stories to get them out of their mind and out there into the world.

As promised back to Vocal, well all social media to be realistic. Again unless you are a celeb you need to engage and all these things take time.

Our author gets a big blank piece of paper, and tea in hand goes off to write a big old to do list. Good luck everyone.

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