Writing - Difficulties and Decisions

Each Wednesday night I attend a Writer's Workshop.  There I learn from others who are Real Authors.  (This means they have been published and actually paid for their writing!!)  I have been blessed to hear their words of wisdom. 
Last night, both speakers shared information I needed.  One of them spoke extensively about marketing yourself and your eventual product (in my case, a novel - or even better, a series of novels).  Topping the list was social media - Facebook, Twitter and blogging.  I currently do two of the three. *sigh*  I MUST add Twitter.  I do not want to add Twitter.  I feel too many hours of my life are taken up by my laptop and phone.  Do I really want/need to add more electronics time into my life?  *sigh*  Unfortunately, the answer is yes.  Now I must decide when to make this leap.

Another technological leap I need to make includes changing my blog.  This is going to be difficult as I am not blog savvy. Thank goodness for teen age sons who love to play on the computer.  I'm hoping my 15 year old can help.  If not, you will see a plea for someone to walk me through how to add pages for each topic I want to cover.

What are these topics?  I want to start with  "My Life", "OOTDs", "Recipes" and "Writing" with others added as needed. I won't write on each daily.  My plan is to post to each tab at least once a week. 

For example, today's post would be under "Writing" if I had it set up.  Under writing, I will talk about my adventures in working on the book, the progress I'm making, etc. I may sometimes post a few paragraphs, or a scene from my book for feed back.  What do you think? Would you be interested in reading a snippet here and there?  I really want to know...

A recent (today's) frustration with writing is how much, or rather, how little time I've spent writing my book.  I keep a log of how much time per day I spend writing and/or editing my book.  Today, I decided to total the amount of time I've actually spent working.  I was appalled to see that since January 10, 2012 I have only spent 47 hours and 45 minutes working on it.  I really thought it was much longer!  Over all, I've probably spent 51-52 hours if you add in the hours spent in the fall before I started logging my time.  Those hours were when I developed my list of characters, thought about the plot and wrote the first half of Chapter 1.  Then I stopped and didn't work on it again until January.  Sad, but true.

This means a couple of things to me.  If I continue at this rate, I will not finish writing my novel this year. It has taken me almost 2 months to do one week's work, and barely write 4.5 chapters. I must spend more time writing and less editing. Actually the editing can wait until the story is written. 

How much more time should I spend each day? I've noticed I can write two hours at a time before I start fidigiting and need to do something else for a while.  So, my plan is to write two hours each morning and two hours each afternoon.  Between times, I will clean house, cook, do laundry, run errands, whatever.  But, I need to spend at least 4 hours per day writing.  It's going to be difficult and will require tons of self discipline.  I hope I can do it. 

Coffee:  Yes, a pot of Community Coffee Breakfast Blend with half and half.  I'm still trying to stay away from the fake, nasty, additive filled creamers that taste soooooo wonderful.  Something else that isn't easy, but worth doing.  :)