Just as I was starting to really get back into the swing of things in writing about Holy Bull, Hurricane Debby walked in. That meant three days of being mostly offline due to power and Internet outages.
If you live in Florida, hurricanes happen. If you live anywhere else, other things happen---weather things, family things, pet things, work things. That's life. The question is, what do you do about it as a writer?
The simplest answer that I can give is this: plan for flexibility. Not planning out writing time and not keeping track of deadlines will take you straight to failure. If you don't make writing a priority---if it's something you get around to when you've gone through the rest of your to-do list---you probably won't do it at all. But creating such a rigid or time-crunched schedule for yourself that you have no room for life's invariable twists and turns may just take you straight to a meltdown. As in most other things, you need balance---enough discipline to make plans and then stick with them on a day-to-day basis, and enough built-in flex time that when life happens (as it inevitably will), you'll still have enough time to pick back up when the other necessity is dealt with.
That being said, a lot depends on your relationship with your editor. Ideally, yours is good enough that when you get absolutely steamrollered by circumstances over which you had little control, you can work something out. (It helps when you don't make a habit of pleading for extra time due to poor planning or procrastination---when your editor starts thinking that maybe the issue isn't unexpected events but poor time management skills or a poor work ethic, you probably won't be with that editor or that publishing house long.) Nevertheless, you can work in more relaxed fashion and head off a lot of crises in advance by building a bit of extra time into your schedule when you can. You'll never be in trouble for submitting a piece or a manuscript early, and if it turns out that you really need the extra time, you'll be glad that you gave yourself some wiggle room.
If you live in Florida, hurricanes happen. If you live anywhere else, other things happen---weather things, family things, pet things, work things. That's life. The question is, what do you do about it as a writer?
The simplest answer that I can give is this: plan for flexibility. Not planning out writing time and not keeping track of deadlines will take you straight to failure. If you don't make writing a priority---if it's something you get around to when you've gone through the rest of your to-do list---you probably won't do it at all. But creating such a rigid or time-crunched schedule for yourself that you have no room for life's invariable twists and turns may just take you straight to a meltdown. As in most other things, you need balance---enough discipline to make plans and then stick with them on a day-to-day basis, and enough built-in flex time that when life happens (as it inevitably will), you'll still have enough time to pick back up when the other necessity is dealt with.
That being said, a lot depends on your relationship with your editor. Ideally, yours is good enough that when you get absolutely steamrollered by circumstances over which you had little control, you can work something out. (It helps when you don't make a habit of pleading for extra time due to poor planning or procrastination---when your editor starts thinking that maybe the issue isn't unexpected events but poor time management skills or a poor work ethic, you probably won't be with that editor or that publishing house long.) Nevertheless, you can work in more relaxed fashion and head off a lot of crises in advance by building a bit of extra time into your schedule when you can. You'll never be in trouble for submitting a piece or a manuscript early, and if it turns out that you really need the extra time, you'll be glad that you gave yourself some wiggle room.