Schedule Wisely or Get a Job

The above are the sage and heartless words of my dearest..

Several of the NYT Best Selling Authors churn out multiple novels in a year, which in itself with the required hours of editing and rewriting is monumental. Add in Twitter, FaceBook, a myriad of other social networking sites and a blog and the task seems unattainable. How do they do it? Where do they find the time?

I’ve spent 3 years beating my head against the wall, not literally (I hate pain), and I feel no closer to being published than the day I scaled down my real estate brokerage in order to do this. I’ve come to an impasse. (My husband is losing patience with my lowered income, but I’m fine with not working 80 hours a week.) It’s time to get serious, to get organized, or admit defeat and go back to work fulltime.

I have three finished novels and two under way. I write, I edit, I rewrite, I edit, but I really suck at querying. I have queries for each of the aforementioned novels but sending them out? Ewww! I’m breaking out in hives just thinking about it. I do the research, I find my dream agents, but… just...ewww.

Enough! I will, starting today.

Since I have three completed novels, I will work on one book at a time rotating them weekly. The new and improved (first ever) schedule I came up with went like this: 10 query letters per day-three hours, two hours of editing, two hours of blog reading/writing, two hours of FB/Twitter (time suckage no longer allowed), and four hours on the WIPs. A full thirteen hours of devotion.

Extremely proud of my spurt of industriousness, I boasted of my eminent success to my other. He rolled his eyes and sagely noted that I hadn’t scheduled time for him, bathing, eating, exercise, or (OMG how could I have forgotten?) chardonnay.

Okay so something has to go, and it won’t be my wine. Do I really need to query?