I’ve been given an extraordinary pair of opportunities – running the Sacramento Book Festival, and also stepping in to help run the 2026 Nebula Convention for the SFWA nebula awards.
But with great power comes… great lack of writing time?
I found myself extremely limited at a moment when I’m trying to move forward on the number of projects, and I’ve had to drop at least one of them, due to simple lack of time.
Which brings up the question, if I’m not writing, am I still a writer?
I know, I know. In the grand scheme of things, the answer is a definitive yes.
But what I’m trying to get at here is a little more granular. If I’m not able to find time for writing when I’m really trying to escalate my career, am I still serious about being a writer?
I don’t have a ready answer for this. Everything I’m doing is writing related, so maybe it still counts? I have met so many great networking contacts through these two ventures, and seem destined to meet more.
Still, none of it is actually writing.
I am bound and determined to carve out some time for crafting my stories in the middle of all this busyness.
A while back, I was talking to one of the former presidents of SFWA about what it meant to join the board of the organization. She said it meant giving up the equivalent of one book a year, in terms of lost time.
I laughed at the time, but she’s right. We make decisions on the non-writing things we choose to do, and they have a direct impact on how much available time and space we have in our heads for writing.
I like to think of my ADHD as a superpower – that I can do anything if I just put my mind to it. But I’m finding that there are limits.
This isn’t forever. The book festival will be over in a couple weeks, and the Nebulas in early June. But I still need to find some way to keep on writing in the meantime.
So am I a writer? Absolutely.
When will I write again on a regular basis? Only the Fates can tell.