Juliana Haygert

You are here: Home / Blogging / Overwhelmed much?
Categories: Blogging, My life

Overwhelmed much?

I’m feeling overwhelmed. By everything.

I have a new house to transform into a home. My daughter has a new school and I’m still trying to figure if I’m okay with every one of their rules. I still don’t have the damned Driver’s License because DMV decided to be hard on me =P Now they are complaining about my name, because I have three last names and it doesn’t fit into their system (or any other for that matter), but what can I do? My name is the way Brazilian law tells us to have them … I’m still not writing as much as I want to. My husband want us to go out all the time and have dinner with his co-workers and their wives so we can make friends (which is good, if I didn’t want to write instead lol). I still don’t know anyone enough to let my daughter with them for a few hours so I can go to the movies and have a nice dinner alone with my hubby. Oh, and I’m supposed to cook dinner, do groceries shopping, clean the house, iron shirts (HATE ironing!) …

And there is still Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Website, Triberr, Google Reader, ROW80, Ladies Who Critique, RWA, FF&P, Savvy Authors, my lovely NA sisters and our plans … and I would love to join a local writing group so we could meet up to write and critique and just talk books and publishing …

I adore everyone—writers, readers, editors, agents, bloggers—I met online … I want to keep up with them, know what they are doing, read all their blog posts, comment, participate … but just there isn’t enough time! Oh, and I evem stopped playing games a while ago because that suck such a huge chunk of my time, and I’m staying away from Pinterest so I won’t have another thing to be addicted to.

And there is still reading. First, because I just love reading and second because writers need to read. A lot. Though I read fast, it still requires considerable time. I should also mention I have over 70 books in my kindle, waiting to be read … that’s more than I read in a year.

And exercising. Let’s not forget that. It’s my third week back in the US, things are still a mess, but I’m searching for gyms and classes. Soon, I’ll be exercising again. And there goes more of my time.

And workshops. I’m taking an online writing workshop right now. I’m a workshop whore … this one is not even half-way through and I’m already thinking about the next LOL

How, just exactly how am I supposed to keep up with it all? People, share with me, how do you keep up?

Seriously, sometimes I guess I was less worried about keeping up and knowing it all and participating in all when I wasn’t on Twitter, Facebook and Triberr and had a pretty slow blog … I also could WRITE! And only write … and I didn’t care about what was hot, what was trend, what agents wanted, and editors’ wish lists. I just wrote whatever I wanted, what I wanted to read, and nothing else. I didn’t care about queries, pitches, blurbs, nor did I spent time spying on cover reveals and excerpts from books that will soon come out …

Life was way less complicated then …

Sometimes I think I should disconnect for a while, you know. Keep out of twitter and Facebook and blog … but I would miss my online friends! And I would feel left out for not knowing what is happening on the publishing world.

How do you keep up with everything? Did you find any magic wand or wished for more time (and patience) upon a star? Do share!

(PS: this is just me venting/ranting. Don’t worry, I’m fine, and things will fall into place soon!)

Cheers,

Comments

  1. Welcome to my world!
    Right now writing is completely on hold until the A to Z Challenge ends. One more week, then I’m taking a weekend out of the house and away from my computer, and then I can get back to writing.

    • I don’t think I could ever take a deliberate break from writing. I stop writing whenever I have to … I can’t imagine going out on vacation and not writing at all!

  4. Okay, Juliana. I’m going to actually say a few things in response:
    1. Most of your overwhelming stuff is temporary. Remember that!
    2. You don’t have to catch up on blogs, Twitter, or whatever from the past. Clear your inbox, your Triberr stream, or whatever, and start over.
    3. You’ll never like all of the school’s rules. NO parent likes ALL of the school rules. We just deal.
    4. See if you can combine things. Can you exercise and read your Kindle at the same time? Can you do your grocery shopping, then have co-workers over for a BBQ at your house? (Families welcome?)
    5. Keep your online time limited for a while. Check in twice a day or whatever works and don’t worry about the rest. Read and comment in the time allotted, and delete the leftovers. You’ll get back in the groove later.
    6. Know that yes, we are overwhelmed. Almost all of us. And most of our to-do list could really wait if we were honest with ourselves. So (try to) relax.
    My heart goes out to you. You’re in a rather tumultuous transition. Hang in there, and know I’m pulling for you. Blessings and hugs!

  5. Julie’s answer was pretty much fabulous, but here’s my two cents:

    Take a deep breath and *relax*. You got this. Now, take out three pieces of paper (sticky notes, notepad, 8x10s, doesn’t matter) and make three separate lists. One is “High Priority,” the next is “Medium Priority,” and the third is “Low Priority.” Now, write down everything you want to do – *realistically*, as in don’t make it a high priority unless that’s something that’s very important to you. Now simply follow the lists and check them off one at a time. Stick to your high priority list first, and work your way down. It’ll be an easy way to see what needs to get done NOW and what can be pushed to the side.

    Whatever you end up doing, good luck!

    • Thanks, Karen.
      I’m trying to prioritize stuff.
      The problem is focusing on one thing only lol my mind is always way ahead of me ;)

  6. Juliana, take a really big, deep breath and then read all your comments. I did, and I know you’ve got a supportive group online and no one is going to get mad at you for taking the necessarily break to settle down into the real world. I think what everything else has already said is super helpful and I don’t want to beat the horse anymore, so I’ll just add: In my experience, keeping my life under control and happy and stimulating in the real world is the only thing that makes being part of my online world also happy and stimulating.
    I really like Julia’s suggestion to not try and catch up on everything happening online — just start over. That’s the nifty things about blog and Twitter, they just keep moving forward and the past isn’t always directly important to what’s happening in the present (and if something IS, there will be a link because links have solved so many problems).
    As for wanting to write and needing to be social & make new friends, and support your husband, that’s something I completely understand — one of my solutions to that was to make it a sort of “silent” quiet time for us as a couple. I ask him to come with me to a coffee shop, and for the first cup of coffee we talk, and for the second I work on writing and he usually reads a book, or works on something he needs to get done, or gets himself all caught up on soccer from the week. Maybe you could suggest to your family that one night a week, after dinner, you go out for coffee/tea/yogurt. You take your writing, your daughter can take her homework, and your husband can choose something he likes to do that he never gets time for (reading a book or magazine or paper, catching up on sports, whatever).
    I’m around to listen — just keep swimming.

  7. Well Julie and Karen really nailed with some amazing words of encouragement and fantastic tips and tricks. The only two cents left for me to add is this “try hard to let go of wanting to please everyone, make everyone happy, or be perfect!” Your best is always good enough and right now, in a huge time of transition, you need to get yourself a HUGE berth of space to figure things out as you go. In the end, you’ll get into a routine and find a balance again…it just takes time so be patient with yourself, pat yourself on the back often, and take a little time to laugh and have some fun! That always helps easy the stress of being so overwhelmed.
    And know…that we are all in this with you!!! Take care of you…HUGS!!

    • *waves* Hi Natalie! Haven’t seen you so much lately …
      Yeah, I know my biggest problem with it all is that I’m impatient and I want everything done right now! And, well, with moving and organizing a new home, it doesn’t happen that fast …
      Thanks for you support!

  8. Well, looks like you’ve got all the great advise you need, Juliana! I would just underscore Julie’s first point: this is temporary. You’ve juggled most of the other things before, but you’ve now added “I’ve just moved” to the list. So, I would certainly support the idea that you do some brutal prioritization for the sake of your sanity. For example, substitute time online with time organizing the house. Do the things you know you have to do, but only have to do one time. When they’re done, you can start getting back to your “normal” life.

    And I’m glad you feel comfortable to vent here. All the best to you! :)

  9. Juliana, first (((hugs))) second you’ve gotten loads of really good advice here and I’m going to be applying some of them to my issues as well. So, just wanted to say thanks, that’s all and hang in there, keep moving forward

  10. I hope you start feeling less overwhelmed soon! I agree with everyone above you said you shouldn’t worry so much about the social media stuff. It’s too much to keep up with everything so don’t feel bad about not being in the loop with everything. It’s okay! If you take a break, your online friends will be there when you return. :)

  11. Oh my goodness. Don’t stretch too thin or you’ll break. We can’t do everything. All we can do is prioritize and do the best we can. I hope it gets better.