Each Day’s Task

Sometimes as I face a day of work, the list of things needing to be done feels overwhelming.

For while I consider myself a novelist first, writing fiction is hardly the only task on my itinerary. Books wait for reading, my shelf almost always stacked ten deep. I compose book reviews and blog posts. I vendor at homeschool conferences, which takes far more time and brainpower than most would imagine. Critique groups, writing meetings, and conferences need attending to sharpen my skills. And right now, I am preparing from scratch a weekly two-hour lesson on discernment in fiction.

And these are only my writing-related activities.

So how do I survive? It’s very discouraging to look back at a week and realize fiction writing accounts for less than a quarter of my writing work. Time feels so scrunched.

I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. I struggle with whether I’m wasting time, and no is a word I’m sure needs employment more often.

Yet, I wonder if my solution might be simpler: Just focus on the task at hand.

Instead of worrying about the lack of progress on my novel, for which there is no immediate deadline, I should concentrate on the class I’m teaching. And maybe I need to take off a day here or there more often from blogging to address a pressing project.

Perhaps tasks come in seasons too.