Interim Step Six: How To Schedule Your Writing Life

Use Your Time Wisely and Reap the Rewards

I’ve been fielding a lot of questions lately about how I structure my time. Considering all the hats I wear, this is a legitimate query. I sometimes wonder myself, especially in the busy season when I am swamped with work from all corners of my obligations. It’s very easy to say the only “job” that matters is my writing, and believe me, I have spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of years putting into place boundaries and structure that allow me to focus on that almost exclusively. My other priority obligation is to the show, which is obviously something I love to do. But many other things nip at my heels, so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how to get a Ph.D. in juggling.

My work can currently be put into four distinct buckets:

• J.T. Ellison novels and short stories

• Joss Walker novels and short stories

• Two Tales Press publishing

• A Word on Words TV show

Inside of those buckets are a variety of different “jobs” from marketing and PR to blurbing books, travel, social media, blogging, website design, reading, interviews and shooting schedules, etc.

I suppose I need a fifth bucket for having a life…which I promise, I do.

In 2025, though, two of those buckets are going away for a bit. The final book of the Jayne Thorne series will launch, and that will wrap both my Joss Walker career and Two Tales Press for the time being. I’ll be able to focus 100 percent of my attention on my JT world, and that’s going to be really nice. Not that I don’t love the indie publishing side of things; trust me, I do. (I probably like it a little too much, which is why it takes up so much of my time. I make pretty books.) But until I am ready to dive into another stellar fantasy idea or expand the Jayne universe some more (or buckle down and write my ghost book, a sci-fi thriller), I can put that to rest for now.

The only thing I’m planning for the indie side going forward is consulting with writers looking to make their own books. As much as I’d love to publish people who aren’t finding a path in the traditional world, that would take ALL my time (and a great deal of external financing) to do properly. I’ve decided that I’m better off teaching the proverbial man to fish than taking the trawler out into the wide Sargasso Sea.

So. All that established, how do I go about managing my time to handle everything?

Planning. Segmenting. Scheduling. Discipline.