ONE DOWN ... ELEVEN TO GO

Last month, I blogged about my decision to take part in the 2009 To Be Read Challenge. At the time, I was struggling to read a book every two weeks -- not because I don't love to read, but because I was making everything else more important than reading. But I'm an author, and I can't do my job well if I don't read. Last weekend, my oldest daughter realized that I was spinning my wheels, which is something I tend to do more often than is good for me. She grilled me, as my daughters tend to do whenever they notice my world getting out of whack. "When you tell people what you do for a living," she asked, "what do you tell them?" "That I'm an author," I said. I mean duh! She nodded as if I'd just proved her point, not my own -- which is another thing my daughters do. "Exactly. That's your career, right?" Again ... duh!!! "So," she said, narrowing her eyes and getting ready for the kill shot. "isn't that what you should be doing all day instead of all this other stuff?" Oh. BIG duh! Yeah. I should be devoting my working hours to actually ... oh, I don't know ... working. At what I do for a living. Hmmm. What a concept. All this to say that I have a new work schedule, to which I'm sticking like glue. At 7:30 every morning, it's time to write, and I write steadily until 12:30 when I break for lunch. My lunch lasts an hour, after which I write again until 4:30 -- and then (and only then) can I tackle all the other things on my ever-growing to-do list. The beauty of this schedule is that when I break for lunch, I read. Yes! I actually spend an hour having lunch, relaxing, and reading! And because of this glorious new schedule, I read two (count them TWO!!!) books last week. And one of them (circling around so that I can finally get to my point) was from my 2009 To Be Read Challenge List! The Land of Mango Sunsets by Dorothea Benton Frank. I feel so very accomplished! _______________________________ Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis