Writing didn’t get any easier after I quit working fulltime at the hospital, but it was my own fault. I quit making lists and setting goals. I had all the time in the world, why did I have to write out what needed to get done for that day? That week? Or that month?

Boy, was I wrong! Thinking back I realized when I did work fulltime if I jotted down, or if I had a clear goal, about what I needed to do it usually got done. But when I quit work, I quit doing lists, quit making goals. And suddenly my organized world became total chaos.

Everyone needs a game plan. But where do you start? You start with what’s most important in your life. It could be cleaning out a closet (In my house we’ve learned not to open closet doors. We just slap a yellow caution tape across it.)

But I did have other goals. First I wrote down what I wanted to accomplish for the year, then by the month. These are always flexible because life has a way of changing what’s important to us. Those were my long-range plans. The short-term clutter was keeping me from accomplishing them, though.

I started jotting down the daily tasks that had to get done, and I began to delegate. Movies back to the video store? My husband could do that on the way to work. He’s even taken over paying the bills and actually does a better job than I did! And we both clean the house. If you work fulltime then it’s doubly hard because you have two jobs. That’s the first step by the way. Learning that writing is a job like anything else. It just happens to be a job you enjoy - most of the time.

When I worked fulltime and was on deadline for Southern Comfort, I knew I had to get a certain number of pages a day or I wouldn’t make my deadline. It took me six months to finish that book, and I’m not a fast writer. After I quit work, it took me six months to finish my next novel. Even I can do the math on that one!

I came up with a game plan to suit my needs. I’ve written out how many pages I will write each day for the book I’m working on now. I set  goal, and I will reach it. I still need to do publicity. I still need to clean house...okay, I’ll probably always need to clean house, but it is somewhere near the bottom of my list. I know my priorities. I hope you have your list with what’s important to you right at the very top because you’re worth it!