Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Art of Cutting Back

An unexpected (but much welcome) full-time temporary job, a flurry of revisions of my graduate school project, and squeezing in writing assignments I just couldn't turn down kept my nose to the proverbial grindstone since the beginning of the year. Something had to go on the back burner, and unfortunately, it was my blog.

Since I didn't have time for every single new project that came my way, I had to take a hard look at my writing workload and make the conscious decision to scale back. For the first time ever, I turned down an assignment (but it's a regular feature of a magazine I write for frequently, so I'm on track to write it for the rest of the year), and I made the difficult to decision to drop three regular projects. My “cutting back” criteria was simple: I cut projects that were either low-paying or not enjoyable. Hopefully, by dropping some of these clients, I'll free up enough time to take on projects that pay a bit more or are just more fun/interesting. To that end, I've started seeking out a few new pubs and sending out queries again—admittedly, my query-writing skills are terribly rusty since most of my work has been with trade pubs—and hoping to fill in the gaps of the clients I dropped.

My primary writing assignment at the moment is my graduation capstone project, which I am diligently trying to finish. I'm not even sure what I hope to achieve once I get my degree...my goal right now is just to finish!

What about you? What have I missed? What changes have you made to your productivity and/or writing routine lately?

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