OK – so it may be January 16^th already – a bit late for resolutions about structuring my time in 2013, but better late than never, as the saying goes. Things are getting a wee bit out of hand in my little corner of the writing and blogging world.

What I need is discipline – you know what I mean, right? A big note posted right in front of my face in a large font, with bold-face words saying things like:

• You will only check out your blog stats, read other people’s posts, and do comments for one hour per day
• You will regularly post to your blog on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and once on the weekend (no less and certainly no more – there is a limit to the amount of your stuff that people want to read!)
• You will write a minimum of 3000 words per day on The Light Never Lies (the fascinating sequel to Disappearing in Plain Sight – cue the band for a shameless plug)
• You will get up from your chair in front of the computer at least once every hour for at least ten minutes
• You will stop drinking so much coffee
• You will  . . . . . blah, blah, blah

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and when I get into laying the law down in this way, I am sure as tooting on that road. The minute some voice in my head (let’s call this voice Ms. Crack the Whip) even starts thinking about the word discipline, another voice (Little Miss Never Grew Up, aka Spoilt Brat) rears up and says – ya, right – you want to screw with my fun – think again – not going to happen. Then the internal battle of the wills gets going and you can guess which of the two voices wins the fight.

So – let us re-examine that you will list from the perspective of another voice (we’ll call her Ms. Compromise). Every part of me is pumped about getting through this first draft on of The Light Never Lies – so no problem there. On the issue of the blog – I’m enjoying doing whatever I want, whenever I want – so I’m not going to get too much traction on trying to rein that in – not right now, anyway. It seems that there might be room for consensus on the issue of not posting more than four times a week as a maximum. Everyone agrees that Spoilt Brat was getting in there a bit too often with her need for instant gratification – pushing the publish button when everyone else had agreed to leave things in draft form for at least one more day. There also seems to be some hope on the issue of getting out of the chair more often. On the down side, there’s no use even thinking of asking the Brat to cut down on the coffee. Let’s be realistic here, you’ve got to pick your battles.

Well, there you have it – baby steps for sure but it’s better than nothing – right? As Cesar Chavez says – it’s like digging  a ditch, you’ve got to do it one shovelful at a time.

(The inevitable disclaimer – don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to compare my petty time structuring issues to the very real and heroic struggles of the United Farm Workers to organize and work for justice under the leadership of Cesar Chavez – the quote in the picture above is more an inspiration than a comparison.)