As writers in the modern world, social networking is a big part of daily living. Especially nowadays. There's Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo groups, and so much more. But where does the line draw? If you spend TOO much time doing these things, blogging....then where is there time for writing? Social networking can be addicting. Come on, look at all the different games on Facebook. One of my weaknesses is Words With Friends. I find myself getting on there a few times a day to play a word against somebody...and no, I don't need, or want an intervention!
See?
Then, there's blogging. They have become a big part for authors. I run my own blog. I know the time it takes to set up the posts, get all the materials, make sure my reviewers have the books they requested, turned in on time, review links sent to authors...You get the idea. It takes A LOT! And I've been running Storm Goddess Book Reviews for a year now, the last four or five months have taken off like crazy. I have found the time to write at least four days a week now, while my rambunctious three year old attends a preschool. And the word counts are showing great progress! I have to make sure I do NOT log into Facebook, or anything else, so that I can get at least my daily goal word count, and hopefully a lot more.
What do you think? How do you find the time? If you appear on a blog, then you would need to be around to comment and interact, right? Etc, etc etc.
We need more hours in a day. But that's not going to happen. So where's that fine line? And how do you make sure not to cross it?
6 comments:
I lost so much of my writing time to social media sites, promoting, blogging, etc, etc. About three weeks ago, I made the hard decision to pull back from it all and concentrate on my writing. Guess what? I'm actually writing again, and it feels great.
I know there are plenty of authors out there who can balance it all and still write, but I'm not one of them. My personal life is so busy and takes up an enormous chunk of my rime, so the rest of my time has to be devoted to writing my next book.
Bravo, Brenda! I know it's hard, but I think your best bet is to write and get more out there, that's the best way for you right now! I am cheering you on. I know you can do it.
I hear you about the busy personal life! I am a major multi tasker, and I enjoy the things I do and it's hard to cut back in any aspect, but sometimes some things take more priority than others.
I feel you. My blog seems to have come to life over the summer with all the extra hours I had time to put into it. Now's schools back in and I'm looking at it going, yikes!
I have had to become much more organized with my blog. I fleshed out a schedule for sign ups that has helped tremendously. I have a standardized Q&A for my interviews and guidelines posted. But, I'll have to go with Nikki on that I'm a multi-tasker. I need lots of different things to do, but I do try to hold myself to a word count goal everyday, before I start working on the blog.
I actually only blog personally twice a week. Sundays are sixsentences and Wednesdays are my weekly studies on the structure of writing. Everything else is just cut and paste from other people and then Triberr has really helped me with publicity so I don't have to be on Twitter all day. Plus my twitter streams to my FB so I don't have to double post.
I also had to stop offering reviews. I still do one here and there as a favor, but they are not normally featured on my blog, they are just for the books I read in my free time.
FB and Twitter, don't really eat a lot of my time.
And I really feel that this is an important step in my career for now. The more visible my name is the better. It will be worth it later on.
I'm so glad you posted this. I feel like I'm getting sucked up by social networking!! Like Brenda, I'll have to cut back as a necessity to find my writing time. It's insane the amount of time spent on FB, blogs, & tweeting.
I attended a class by Eloisa James about managing social media. The trick is to schedule it. I spend about an hour on it a day and half a day on Mondays.
Thanks everyone, for weighing in! You bring up some great points :)
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