Apparently, this week was ‘Work Life Week’ – the HR team at my company have been making a pretty big deal about fun activities and going home on time. We even got free orange Kit Kats. Unfortunately for me, it’s been a busy week with events and working away, so I’ve probably worked about 60 hours or so. So much for the work/life balance.
But does working so much get in the way of the things you love doing? I work in Marketing, so I spend a lot of my day at the computer, often writing and editing documents. At the moment, work is stressful and a hard slog, often the last thing I want to do when I get home exhausted is switch on the laptop and work on my novel, even though writing makes me happy. I push myself at work because I have to, and sacrifice my writing, because that’s the easy option.
Starting this blog was a way to fight that. I’m the only one who can sit down and do the work, but sometimes I need the right push.
My work and my writing and this blog all complement each other and I have to keep working hard, because writing is my love, but it’s work too.
I spent a year studying for an MA in Creative Writing, but I’ve written more since I’ve been working full-time. In fact, I wrote Broken Things in about eight months my first year out of university. Sometimes you just get more done when you’re busy, and if you have all the time in the world to write it’s easy to put it off until tomorrow.
But the balance is the hardest thing. I feel at my most inspired at night. Often I’ll go to bed and suddenly I’m lying awake, the ideas flooding through my mind. Do I get up and work into the early hours and suffer the next day in the office, or do I lie in the dark and let the moment pass me by?
Whatever I choose, as long as I’m writing the balance will keep me sane.