Peggy Wade, author of Regency Historicals for Leisure Books gave a funny, entertaining and informative talk at HODRW's February monthly meeting. She spoke about how we as writers can better organize our time to meet all of our goals both professionally and personally. The following is a brief re-cap of her talk entitled, "Help I Want My Life Back."

Peggy began by telling us a little about her own life in regards to her family, her writing career and her position as Jazzercise manager for seven states. Then she handed out some work sheets.

They were as follows:

The struggle of the multi-committed woman to achieve balance in her life.

This involved a circle. Peggy instructed us to divide the circle into individual slices to see how we spent our time.

What is the vision you have for yourself?

In other words, where do we see ourselves in ten years? What kind of lifestyle do we expect to have? Where do we want our writing careers to be at the end of ten years? What about our personal life and our families?

Who are the most important people in your life?

For most of us this part was easy . . . husband, children, grandchildren, significant other etc.

List five things that are priorities for you.

Family? Our health? Job? Writing? Learning how to write Paranormal or Historical romances? Learning how to write an effective synopsis or query letter? Sending out the query you've been reluctant to send? Peggy suggested that we make a list of our priorities and put them near our computer so we can see them everyday.

IF IT'S POSSIBLE FOR ME THEN IT'S POSSIBLE FOR YOU. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER OR NOT YOU WANT TO MAKE IT PART OF YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCE.

This was followed by two fill-in-the-blank statements:

Fear is holding my image of what you don't want to happen.

Fate is acting like it's so when it's not so in order to make it so.

The next ten questions involved things that Peggy suggested we as wives and mother's tend to avoid because of one very real complicated emotion: Guilt

1.    I have a right to ask for help.

How many of us don't ask our husbands or our children for help in accomplishing life's daily chores like taking out the garbage, cleaning up the house, loading and unloading the dishwasher, doing a load of wash or folding the laundry?

2.    I have the right to make choices.

This is a biggie at least for me. How do we decide to make the choice to say no to some things and yes to others?

3. I have the right to change my mind.

Okay, so you've promised your husband that you will help him with a project he is working on at home or you've told your kids that you will help out at their school carnival? Imagine what happens when you say "I've changed my mind. I'm exhausted from the past week. I stretched myself too thin and I need some down time." Big explosion of guilt here, ladies, especially when you see the look on your husband and kids faces when you say those words.

3.    I have the right to care for my needs.

Does some of this dialogue sound familiar?

"What do you mean you need to go take a bath for an hour?" "What do you mean you need to go workout at the gym or spend some time on the treadmill?"
"What do you mean you're going out to dinner with a couple of your girlfriends to catch up and you can't make supper?"
"What do you mean you can't wash my shirts?"
"What do you mean you need to be left alone to grab some much needed down time?"

Do you feel another burst of guilt?

Peggy suggestion is to retrain our internal message board and turn our negative thoughts into positive affirmations.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY! In other words, speak up or shut up!

SHARE your goals!

SET the rules!

WALK the Talk!

Stop dragging your PSOP (Personal Soap Opera) around with you. Eliminate these three words:

Why, When and Who . . Why did this editor reject my work? When is my chapter going to ask me to speak at one of our meetings? Who does she think she is to get published before me?

Turn these negative thoughts into something "proactive." Turn them into How and What. How can I improve my work so that maybe next time the editor won't reject me? What can I offer to my chapter as an informative subject to speak about? What can I say to my friend who just sold her first book so that maybe I'll get some positive feedback as well when I sell for the first time? We must Adapt, Change, Learn and Develop.

Time Buster Tidbits:

Efficient vs. Effective: What does this mean? Efficient people are extremely busy but they never get much accomplished. Effective people go after the big tasks and get a lot accomplished. Deal with the big stuff first.

Peggy suggested that we take the large tasks and use the "Salami Technique." In other words, slice and dice. Make a calendar for yourself and your families activities, use a notepad, a noteboard to help you keep track and organize.

High/Low Payoffs: How can we spend more time on the things that have a high pay off like quality time spent with our families or more time writing and less time on the things that have a low pay off such as housework, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping? How can we turn the low payoffs into high payoffs? We must organize and maximize our time by asking for help, making choices, changing our minds, caring for our needs and accepting that we have the right to say "no."

For those of you who are perfectionists, make an effort to try to curb your need for every area of your life to be perfect. Take it one baby step at the time. The more effort you put in the easier and easier it will get to stop being a perfectionist. Purge the junk mail. Drop those tempting catalogues and brochures on the Hawaiian vacation into the garbage before you even bring them into the house.

In closing, Peggy stated we must allow ourselves plenty of sweet rewards and always remember that we're entitled to give ourselves time to re-group. Maximize your pluses, surround yourself with positive, supportive people. And last but not least, "Think big--start small!"

Cher Gorman has been writing seriously since 1994 and has recently won three awards. She is cautiously optimistic for a first sale very soon.