It’s a pleasure to welcome Cherie Burbach to my blog today. Cherie writes about friendship, dating, family, and relationships at About.com (NY Times) and Life Goes Strong (NBC/Universal). She has penned eleven books and ebooks, including Internet Dating Is Not Like Ordering a Pizza and 21 Ways to Promote Your Book on Twitter, and has published over 500 articles on the subjects of health, sports, and lifestyle. For more info, visit her website, http://www.cherieburbach.com.Ha! I don't know if I'm an expert in social media, but I do use it quite a lot in promoting my work. I think the key to juggling everything is blocking off time for various things. For instance, the first thing I do when I get up is check email, update links to Facebook or Twitter, and then I log off. I spend the next few hours updating one of my own blogs, and then I log off of that, and spend the next several hours writing for clients. I trade off each day on the projects I work on, but that's generally how I get it done.
Since freelance writing is my main job, I use weekend hours to do fiction. Poetry I tend to write daily, usually at the end of the night.
Time blocks are key! It's too easy to get sucked into Facebook or Twitter during the day, so when I do have to log on I try and give myself a time limit.
Tell us about your current writing project.
I have a couple writing gigs I just adore right now, at About.com (where I write about the topic of friendship), and Life Goes Strong (where I write about midlife dating, care giving, and spirit.) I really enjoy the topics I'm writing about, and it makes the days go really fast.
On the book side of things, I'm working on several nonfiction books and a novel.
Where do you find ideas for your writing? What inspires you?
Everyday life really inspires me. I'm one of those people who constantly carries a notebook around with her to jot down ideas and notes.
When did you know you wanted to write? Do you have one of those "When I was six, I picked up a pen . . ." stories?
Yes, I do! I always wrote short stories, and when I was in 2nd grade my teacher told my mom that my writing had a "poetic quality" to it and that I should try writing poetry. My first thought was: "Poetry? Ick!" I didn't know anything about it (and to be honest, I still don't.) But poetry was a saving grace for me, and really helped me through a lot of childhood trauma. I still feel like poetry helps me process the outside world. I feel like I've been writing forever.
How do you divide your time between writing and blogging?Blogging takes up a lot of my time right now because that's where I make my money. I always feel like when I get my blogging done, my writing work (which is usually books) is my bonus time. If I had to divide it up, it would probably be blogging 75% of the time and writing the rest.
What do you do when you’re not working?
I like to cook, paint, and my latest passion is putting glass sculptures together. (One example is here: http://cherieblogs.com/2011/08/17/glass-garden-sculpture/). I love doing crafts and mixed media pictures also.
Just for fun, what was your favorite childhood book?
Any of the Madeline books. I was so influenced by them I even named my dog Genevieve.
Tell us what’s coming up in your writing life.
I'm working on a new novel which is in a very different genre that I'm used to. So I'm doing research and hope to have some time to work up a draft over the holidays.
Any last thoughts?
Thank you so much for the interview! I would encourage anyone reading this to help out a favorite author: write a review, write and let them know you enjoyed one of their books, pray for them, send them positive thoughts, and visit their blogs. There can be a lot of negativity in the writing world sometimes and writers appreciate any bit of positivity that comes our way.
How can readers connect with you?
I've got contact info at each of my blogs (listed here: http://cherieburbach.com/blogs/). Or via Twitter: @brrbach.
Tweet
Share
3 comments:
I really need to start working with time blocks - I'm always suckered into what is going on in the social networking world *guilty grin* And I like the idea of carrying around a notebook for thoughts I don't want to loose. I used to do this as a teenager, and somewhere along the way I stopped. It's very nice to meet you Cherie! I'm headed on over to your blog :-)
Karin, great interview! Thanks for introducing me to another great author and blogger!
Gwendolyn: Thanks for your comment, and I can totally relate, social media is easy to get sucked into. Managing time is always such a challenge.
Karin: Thanks so much for interviewing me! Nice to visit your wonderful blog.
Gwen, you and I *both* need to start working with time blocks. I'm not nearly as organized as Cherie. I noticed that in the description of her work day she said "log off" twice . . . I think that's key!
Post a Comment