Determining My Priorities

In my world, time is a precious commodity.

Like talent and intelligence, time is a gift from God given in set amounts, and while all these things can be wasted, none of them can be manufactured. We can only use what we’ve been given.

My problem is that have many interests in a wide variety of areas, each of which requires a substantial amount of time to maintain, much less actually improve at. As a result, I have been forced to determine again where it is best for me to focus.

One of the decisions facing me is how best to divide my writing time. Long projects and short pieces vie for my attention. Both fiction and nonfiction are on my writing wish list. But I cannot do all things at the same time. So what is it I really want to do?

The answer came back the same as it did almost eleven years ago: Write novels.

The realms of the imaginary have long been a passion. To expand reader’s horizons, to open unseen realms, to allow them to experience the fantastic in a way that will challenge them to see this world differently—this has long been my heart.

The types of stories I envision, however, do not come easily or effortlessly, even after ten years of practice. If anything, the process has become more complex, demanding, and complicated. In short, more time-consuming.

So I must cut back to keep doing what I love, and this blog shall see some of those cuts. For I am convinced that, at this point, focusing on creating a finely crafted novel will far exceed a split of my efforts, which will result at the moment in mediocre blogs and mediocre books.

Therefore in the coming weeks, this blog shall change. All the ways are yet unknown to me. Fewer posts, for sure. Perhaps a change in content or focus too. I’m not sure. But I am first a novelist. Novelists write novels. And this is what I intend to do.