My Writer’s Dilemma

My Writer’s Dilemma

Lately I have been struggling to determine how to spend my writing time. I have a limited amount of time and an unlimited number of ideas. I’d love to do it all, but that isn’t reasonable when I have a full-time job homeschooling my six kids.

My writing timeline thus far can be summarized as follows:

  • Childhood diary writing, school assignments, and the beginnings of novels never finished
  • High school compositions and speech writing for competition
  • College compositions and speech writing for competition
  • Grad school thesis, dissertation, and professional writing
  • Christian periodical and booklet writing when I had children
  • Christian speech writing and secular freelance writing for periodicals
  • Started blogging
  • Wrote and self-published nonfiction book; continued speech writing and blogging occasionally
  • Wrote a first draft novel for Christian middle schoolers and families; continued speech writing and occasional blogging

That’s how I got to where I am today. I am now trying to finish my novel, speak more (requiring more speech writing), build a blog following for at least two of my three blogs (what’s the point of blogging if few people read what you write?), and generate more sales for my book. Meanwhile, I am writing what amounts to enormous amounts of material via email to friends–much of it potentially helpful to many people.

So I wonder what I should do. I’m over my phase of wondering if I should be writing at all while trying to homeschool. I’m past the idea that I can’t try to make money selling what I write simply because I don’t need the money. I now know that I can make money to support charities and missions and can make time to write despite my busyness.

But do I drop my blogs completely until I finish my novel? (I do know that I need to finish and publish it.) Do I just blog post haphazardly (which is what has been happening despite my repeated resolve to make my blogs a priority)? Do I spend my writing time on speeches, articles for publication, or even video scripts (which is yet another thing I love writing and developing)? Do I spend my time promoting what I’ve already written? Do I focus on writing more books which I could sell at my speaking engagements? Do I keep trying to do it all?

For today, I’ve decided just to write about where I’m at, like I would to a friend.

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