Prioritizing Your Life

I keep my promises and deliver on all surprises! Today we have Yasmine Gaelenorn with us. Yasmine is not only a talented writer and spinner of extraordinary worlds, she is also a very wise woman. Her wisdom shows in pictures of those she counts as Most Important People--I'm sure you'll agree. Take it away, Yasmine! Stella

There are two things I’ve discovered about the writing business over the years. The first is that you have to work your butt off to succeed. All the dreaming and wishing in the world won’t cut it if you don’t sit your ass in the chair, put your hands on the keyboard, and pound out the stories. And to become a “bestselling” author, you often—not always but often—have to write several books a year for awhile to establish your name. And then you find you’re writing several books a year because the audience wants it. You love the work, but any free time is now limited.

This leads into the second lesson I’ve learned—and this one came the hard way: Sometimes you come to a screeching halt and are forced to reassess your lifestyle and choices. Success comes with built in stress factors that sometimes boggle the mind.

Or maybe you aren’t a writer, but you find yourself working two jobs to make ends meet and you hardly ever make it home. Or you volunteer for one job and find yourself leading a dozen committees and suddenly you’re resenting the work rather than rejoicing in it. Or you suddenly realize you’ve gotten hooked in as your internet acquaintances’ free therapist rather than spending time with your family and friends.

So do you let all of this continue to get worse? Do you tell the family “forget it, I can’t do family night anymore?” Do you ignore the husband and pay the pizza delivery man for a month’s worth of dinners? Do you start ditching lunch with friends?

Well, sometimes you have to—on a temporary basis when you have a deadline or when you have to pull a second shift at work. But you can’t let it become a way of life. So what do you do when life overwhelms? There’s no clear cut answer, but I’m in the process of looking for ways to carve out more time for me, for my life, for my work.

You see, I recently landed several choice projects—three more books (7-9) on my current urban fantasy series, three books on a second UF series, a novella for an anthology with a deadline of 12/1, another project I can’t discuss yet. So now my deadlines aren’t just tight, they’re daunting. And my health is demanding more attention—I can no longer ignore the aches and pains or skip breakfast and guzzle caffeine all day and then grab a bag of chocolates to make up for the energy drain.

This summer, I found out I’ve got a low thyroid. My adrenals are low, I’m Vitamin D & B12 deficient, and there’s a slight concern over blood sugar. On the plus side, my cholesterol’s great, thank heavens, and so are the ‘fatty acid’ type readings—but I’ve got to watch my health. And the truth is I don’t get enough exercise, and an old injury makes it difficult to find ones that won’t cause pain or make things worse.

On top of that, in July we lost two of our senior cats—our 18 year old Keeter, who had CRF, and our 15 year old Luna, who developed liver cysts and a month after surgery, succumbed to previously undiscovered pancreatic cancer. Our cats *are* our children. They mean the world to us, and we didn’t lose pets—we lost beloved friends and family members.

The day we lost Luna, I found out that I made the NYT extended list again with Dragon Wytch. The joy of that was so wrapped up with the pain of losing my girl that I don’t even remember smiling. When, three days later, when we lost Keeter, I knew I had to change my life. I was exhausted and I was facing deadlines and contract negotiations. And then I was offered the contract for the new series, and the lesson really hit home. And then with this newest endeavor, it smashed me flat as a pancake. So I’ve looked at my life and asked, “Where can I make changes?”

I gave up several volunteer tasks I was doing. I’m saying, “I’m simply can’t do it” to any new requests that won’t recharge me in some way. I’ve taking a break from most internet stuff except updating my website and an occasional blog post. I’ve handed over more responsibility to my assistant. I told all but my closest friends who email me on a regular basis, “Sorry, I’m not answering non-essential email anymore.”

I found someone to help me with the housework. I’ve put a moratorium on accepting any new social engagements unless I think they will recharge us—absolutely no obligatory appearances until I get out from under the next four deadlines (all four due before April 15, 2009).

I’m forcing myself to get up from my desk every hour to spend ten minutes on my stability ball. I’m cutting down on the espresso. Instead of spending an hour puttering on the net every the morning, I’m taking fifteen minutes to meditate. I’m aiming eight hours of sleep a night—something I haven’t gotten in years.

And we just made an addition to our family—Calypso has come to live with us. Our 20 year old and other 15 year old aren’t sure about it yet, but they’re not fighting.

Calypso is twelve weeks old now, and she’s incredibly sweet and loving, as well as being young-kitten rambunctious. There’s a story attached to finding her (we first saw her through Petfinder), but it would make this blog too long. Leave it to say, she was meant to come live with us, and we love her dearly, as frustrating as dealing with a baby can be at times. She’s brought new life into our family, and she radiates joy and happiness.

And that’s what I want our household and our lives to be like. I want to be happy, and since I’m happy with my work, it means I need to be happy with the rest of my life. And that means saying “No” and meaning it. It means spending more time on my husband, the cats, friends, reading or playing games or even just watching movies. And that means prioritizing my life, and sending things like non-essential email and web surfing back where they belong—as occasional hobbies, not frantic obsessions. It means putting my work back as the priority instead of all the stuff surrounding my work.

And this is the crux of my rambling blog here. A friend told me a few years back: Sometimes you have to let go of the mediocre or good in order to embrace the great. Because there isn’t time enough in the world to do everything. So we have to pick and choose that which is best for us—spiritually, career-wise, and emotionally. So there it is: it comes down to making choices in order to be the best we can be, and to take back control of our lives.

So what are your choices? Are you swamped for time? What in your life is ‘mediocre’ or ‘merely good’ that you can let go of, in order to allow more of the ‘great’ into your life? And remember: sometimes the ‘great’ simply means a chance to sit on the porch, stare at the trees, and breathe.

Bright Blessings,
Yasmine Galenorn


USA Today bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn writes urban fantasy for Berkley: both the bestselling Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon Series for Berkley and the upcoming Elemental Magic Series. In the past, she wrote two mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, and eight nonfiction metaphysical books. Yasmine has been in the Craft for over 28 years, is a shamanic witch, and describes her life as a blend of teacups and tattoos. She lives in Bellevue WA with her husband Samwise and their cats.

For more information, visit her site at www.galenorn.com, via MySpace: www.myspace.com/yasminegalenorn and via Live Journal: http://yasminegalenorn.livejournal.com