The past month or so has been a challenge. After my husband struggled with breathing issues for nearly two weeks and it suddenly had gotten worse, I had to rush him to the ER. He was admitted
right away. After several days of tests and treatments, I was told he has
late-stage heart failure. Wow! We knew his heart was in bad shape having
undergone a triple bypass back in 2013 and a 7-day hospital stay in 2023 due to
congestive heart failure. Sounds pretty grim, yet despite it all, my husband continued to work hard on
our ten acres, help neighbors, and stay involved in the community. He has never
been a chill-all-day kind of guy. He always needed to keep busy.
But things are different now. He's older, the body less
forgiving, and his poor heart not able to keep up.
As for me, I am relieved he's under the care of
professionals. He's in a long-term care hospital now getting the best
treatment. I don't know when he'll return home. The not knowing is hard, but
I'm leaving it all up to God.
This crazy turn of events has caused me to toss my writing
goals to the back burner. Between daily visits to the hospital, getting my
special needs daughter to her day program and medical appointments, and keeping
up with chores at home, it's been impossible to stay on top of writing.
Finally, I made the time. Or, should I say, a cold forced me to stay home and
away from vulnerable patients in a hospital. I finally finished the query
letter I plan to send out to agents. It took some doing to make myself sit down
and get it done. The simple strategy is the same one an organizer will use to help
frantic people keep their homes neat and chaos free. It's the fifteen-minute
trick. Set the timer and work as fast as you can until it goes off.
Well, I didn't use a timer, but I did force myself to sit
down and go through the steps to fine-tune my query letter. You can say I had a
timer inside my head. I wasn't going to stop until I completed the task.
This simple method can be utilized no matter where you're at in your writing journey. Maybe you're working on a rough draft. Set the timer for 15 minutes and go for it. Perhaps you're trying to nail down your characters. Dial to a set time and write down every quirk your character may have. I find it helpful to have an interview with my characters. You can do this easily within 15 minutes. The important thing is to make it fun. When tough times happen, you need something bright and fulfilling in your day. Accomplishing a writing task, even for a short fifteen minutes, can be very satisfying. And it's no secret writing is good therapy.
I would love to see your comments about the tough times you may have experienced and how it has compromised your writing or any other important task you're struggling to finish. As always, thanks for visiting my blog and taking the time to read this post.
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