Starting Over and Getting Organized: Time to Focus

There’s been a lot of upheaval in my writing life lately, some of it spilling over from my personal and work life.

There’s the lost manuscript.

The mismanaged roofing job which resulted in water damage in the house.

The fact that because of said water damage I’ve been working out of my kitchen. (These high stools are killer on your back muscles when you’ve been sitting for a while…)

More stress at the day job than I can adequately describe in one sentence. (Trust me, it’s the stuff of a novel-length tell-all…)

There’s been some good stuff, too — I just had a wedding anniversary — but if the state of the kitchen table is any indicator of what’s going on: things are out of control.

It’s time to reign in and re-boot.

It also means focus.

I’ve been concentrating on the new stuff while I’ve got a pile of perfectly good finished stuff just sitting around. I’ve had some rejections come in (fact of life, folks, if you plan to be a writer) and I haven’t sent them back out to new markets yet.

They need to be sent off to new homes in hope of fosterage!

I haven’t decided if this current morass means I need to re-examine the goals I made in January. I need to dig out of the muck and see what’s left before I determine that.

So last night I updated my calendar from all the multiple input sources and printed it out through December 2012. (Just for fun, I stopped printing at December 21 and marked the end of the world. Remember: life is WORTHLESS without humor.) Then, I updated all my tickler files and writing deadlines.

Tomorrow… I have a class, so I’ll have to wait until Thursday to go through the finished projects and make plans for their distribution.

Then: I’m going to attack the unfinished writing projects like paying off debt: the projects which are closest to completion get written down first, thereby knocking out as many as possible, in as little time as possible.

And, damn the muse! I’m not starting anything new until all these are off my plate. (She’ll get me for that, I’m certain.)

How do you approach a re-organization?