Live to work or work to live?

There's a lot of talk about a work-life balance and I'm feeling very much like my work-life balance is out of whack. I'm exhausted. I went to work at 9.15 yesterday morning. I got home at 1.35 this morning. And I'll be back at the cinema by 9.30 this morning.

Okay. I wasn't actually at work for all that time. I did sneak off to the library for around 3 hours in the middle of the day (from 11.30am -2pmish). But still. It's a long day. Especially when there was a function for 110 from 5-9pm, then 300 odd people for the 10.30pm burlesque show. Believe me, there was a lot of beer sold.

This kind of day is unfortunately all to common for me. I've been cursed with a strong work ethic (thanks Mum & Dad) and because I love the cinema I run, I almost always go above and beyond what the job requires. It was my son's birthday yesterday, but I barely saw him. We're having a party next week, but it's not quite the same...

But today, exhausted and with a to-do list longer than my arm (functions are great, but they take so much time away from the other, more mundane things I need to get done) I have to wonder if it's worth it. By the time I get home tonight, I'll be too cranky and tired to do anything except collapse in front of the TV and go to bed early after the kids go to bed. Which means no writing.

And no writing means I won't get to finish the final two chapters of my book. Because yes, I made it through the climactic scene yesterday, and am now well into the home stretch. The end is in sight!

This is all kind of my fault. I am the boss and I do write the rosters. I just always feel better if I'm there to oversee major events.

How do you manage a work-life balance?

Armageddon?

The weather here has been insane. Totally off the wall crazy. Yesterday it was pouring rain when I got up, but by the time I took E to school, it was fine enough I needed sunglasses. When I got back from the gym, it poured again, only to fine up enough to walk to the supermarket about a half hour later.

Then in the afternoon, the sky got dark. Really dark. Thunder growled somewhere just over the horizon. Wind whipped through the trees outside the window. I bundled little O up and we ran for the bus stop, steel colored clouds heavy above our heads. We got on the bus just as the clouds broke and rain poured down again. On the way into town, the rain turned to hail. And this wasn't just little hail, it was huge. It looked like snow piled up on the street.

Going down the small hill on the way to my cinema, the bus almost crashed, but managed to make it by going at about 2 miles an hour. The hail piled up against buildings and floated down the gutters on rivers of rainwater. It was incredible. And fifteen minutes later, you guessed it: sun.

This whacky weather comes after a winter of weirdness. We had a very mild winter this year, apart from the super-cold snap where we got snow (for the first time in 30+ years). When you add these odd climactic happenings to the earthquakes, floods, forest fires and other natural disasters around the globe, I have to question whether the world is coming to an end. Or if nature is fighting back against us for poisoning her.

What do you think?

Outtake

In the process of re-editing Taillights, I came across a few sections I excised at one point or another. Since I always love to watch the deleted scenes in the DVD extras, I thought I'd share the odd deleted scene with you here.

This one was, originally, the beginning of the book. I realized about 10K in, that I'd started in entirely the wrong place and scrapped most of what I'd already written and started again. A few scenes from that first 10K ended up making it into the book in flashbacks, but this one wasn't among them...

The kitchen is hot. Summer sun pours through the windows in slices made by the wooden blinds. It’s warm on my back and sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. The thin fabric of my uniform sticks to my skin. My eyes are heavy and I yawn, letting my hand run across the scars and gouges in the soft pine tabletop. My fingers find the place my brother learned to write his name. I trace the shaky letters, T - O - N - Y scored forever in the wood. I know I could find my own name on the other side of the table, the letters just as awkward and misshapen. I don’t bother looking though, just yawn again and let my head drop to rest on my folded arms.

The screen door swings open and crashes into the wall behind.

“Goddamn it!” My mother struggles through the door, her arms over-full of grocery bags.

“Oh good.” She eases her load onto the counter and wipes graying hair from her forehead. “You’re still here. There’s more out in the car. Be careful of the flowers.”

I force myself to my feet, dazed from the heat, and yawn my way through the door. The sunlight is blinding on the cement driveway and I squint as I head toward the blue station wagon. The trunk is open, revealing stacks of grocery bags.

“Did you buy the whole store?” I mutter as I scoop up as many bags as I can handle.

“Why so much?” I ask, staring at the counters that have vanished beneath the acres of shopping. “There’s only three of us.”

“I know.” Mom turns from where she’s trying to find a place for three jars of peanut butter. “But we’re going to the beach next week, remember? So I bought extras of everything for the house there.”

I pull a sack toward me and start excavating its contents. “Do I have to come? I thought maybe I’d skip it this year.”

“Skip it?” Mom skewers me with her gaze. “You think I’m going to leave you alone here for over a week?”

“Well, I thought Kim could come and stay…”

“You and Kim… Lucy, you make me laugh sometimes.”

I slam the fridge door. “I guess that’s a no, then?”

“You guess right. I’m not leaving two irresponsible sixteen-year-olds alone in my house.” Mom grins at me, turning back to the groaning pantry. “It’ll be fun, Lucy. You love the beach. And Tony’s coming.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing..”

“It is a good thing. How long has it been since you saw your brother?”

I shrug. “I dunno. A few months, I guess.” It’s not like I care that much. Tony and I have nothing in common but genes. The four years between us might as well be forty; we live in different worlds.

So, what do you think? Can you see why I chopped it out?

Failure and Success

I'm not going to meet my deadline for finishing the first draft of The Boyfriend Plague. There. I said it. I promised I'd be done by September 15th, but as it is now September 10th and I'm still a good 15-20K from the end, I have to say it's not going to happen.

Why, you ask?

Well, that's the exciting part. When I got home from my Wednesday writing session at the library, a whole bunch of rather cryptic messages popped up on my Twitter feed, congratulating me. For what? I asked myself (and my friend Juliana).

Then I found out that I'd won 2nd prize in a contest on Gabriela Lessa's blog and the prize was to submit my full MS to an editor at Sourcebooks. How exciting is that?

So rather than working on Boyfriend in the past few days, I have been madly re-reading Taillights to make sure it's okay before sending it out. I haven't read the whole book through since the last time I polished it for a full request back in June, so it's like reading it for the first time all over again. And I'm actually quite happy with it. I've made a few little tweaks and changes here and there, but overall, I still really love this book. I have another 12 chapters to work through, then I'm sending it off.

Fingers crossed the editor loves it too....

Shameless plug...

I don't usually do this...

But...

One of my favorite stories, After The Rains, was just published in an anthology. This is a really different story for me, in that it's a dystopian sci-fi kind of piece. I know. Way outside the box, right?

But I love this story. I love the character and her journey. And I want people to read it. So, why don't you? You can get it at all these different places.

Amazon

SmashWords

Lulu (Print and eBook)

And that ends my small commercial....

If you do read it, let me know what you think, okay?

When Life Gets In The Way

I'm frustrated. I'n less than 20K away from the end of my draft, but I can't seem to find enough time to sit down and write it. My deadline is September 15th, and it is creeping up on me way too fast. I have plans to write every day, but somehow life keeps getting in the way.

For example. I was just getting ready to sit down a the laptop on Thursday night when my youngest son came out of his room barking like a seal and barely able to breathe. Luckily we knew it was croup since he gets it a lot, but it was a very bad bout and we had to take him to the Emergency Room. And if you've ever been there, you know how long you have to wait around.... So, no writing time for Kate.

Then, when we got back from the ER, my older son started vomiting, so I was washing sheets and duvets at 2am. I ended up having to take the day off work to stay home with them both, and luckily there was a short period of time when they were both asleep so I wrote then. But it wasn't long enough.

Then on Saturday I had to go into work early to catch up on all the work I hadn't got done on Friday. And Sunday is my day to do stuff with the kids, so we went out to the coast. I wrote in the evening, but again, there wasn't enough time to do as much as I wanted to.

And the rest of this week doesn't look promising either. I have a late night burlesque show opening at work on Thursday, which means I'll be working late nights twice this week. And both my parents' birthdays are this weekend.

I'm going to scrape and steal whatever time I have, but I'm not entirely confident I'm going to meet that September 15th deadline.

How do you fight back when life gets in the way?

There have been some amazing entries, and I want to thank everyone who has taken part, either as a writer or just a reader. So, now comes the fun part! In the comments, tell me whose beginning, middle and end you liked the most! The ones who get the most votes will win prizes. We all love prizes, don't we? I have copies of an extremely limited edition of short stories to give away (only 50 were ever printed), plus one lucky writer will get a query and first chapter critique from yours truly. Sound worth playing for? So get voting!