My whole life is a balancing act: work/family, faith/doubt, writer/teacher, writer/friend, writer/mother (I think I’ve already said that one). I’m just about to get a dog, so soon I can feel guilty about not spending enough time with the cat, as well.

But in the contemporary world of letters, there’s another kind of balancing act – creating/promoting.

You may notice (at least I HOPE you noticed) that I’ve been gone awhile. That’s because time has been particularly crunched lately. In the last four weeks, I’ve externally examined for three universities, spent two weeks in the American Midwest, attended a wedding in Wales, hosted my writing group/ a dinner party/and my long-term guest, and did my various volunteer roles. Plus my job and writing my book and looking after my daughter.

Something had to give – and it was my outward-facing authorial dialogue with the world.  Much better to ease up on promotion than not to have anything to promote. The writing has to come first! I did the MA with someone who was so good at self-promotion that I thought, at one point, she was going to land an agent before she’d written a word. But she never did actually write her book…

I wish I had her talent at that…but I don’t. And when time gets particularly tight; when the plates are all falling off my spinning sticks, I still have to find time to write one sentence. And then another. And then another. And then another 500 or so.

Hope all is well with your creative work. And now that my houseguest is gone home, the marking is caught up and the chapter is off to the printer, I’ll see you soon.