The age old struggle: Things you want/need to accomplish and the lack of time to complete them all.

There’s a reason why so many breakout writers are either very young or in their 50s (or older), and it’s because of time. When you’re young, like say in high school or college (university for those across the pond), you don’t own anything, don’t have nearly as many bills as you will once you reach your mid-twenties. You don’t have families, rent, car payments, medical bills, or even a credit card (for some). You have free time and disposable income. And energy. Who needs sleep when you’re 22 and energy drinks exist? And when you’re in your 50s, 60s, and 70s, you’ve raised your children, probably already paid off your car(s), home, maybe even have savings that you get to dip into for fun stuff. And if you’ve retired, no more job. Just loads and loads of time, and the need to fill it.

There are always exceptions to this rule, obviously. I’m not saying these are the only two ways people can burst onto the book scene. They just seem to be the easiest explanations for the large gap in age.

My struggle with this equation is that it’s not just the normal everyday time issues of balancing writing my novel versus cooking dinner, doing chores around the house, or working. It’s the overwhelming number of novels and ideas for those novels that constantly pop into my head at any given moment. If you’ve perused this site, you know that the Aurora Reese page shows three upcoming novellas. What you don’t see is the probably five more that are in my head for that pen name. What’s more is that I haven’t even published the page for my Kelly A. Connor books yet, because none of them are anywhere near done. How many would you think already have placeholders on that page, though? Three? Five?

Psh. If only.

It’s thirteen.

And those aren’t novellas, either. No short reads for those ideas. My novellas tend to run between 25,000 and 40,000 words each. These are looking to probably be more like 100,000 words or more. And each one vies for my attention at random points throughout the day, sometimes when I’m trying to focus on a different work in progress. And then, there’s the dreams that either add more details to the already existing ideas, or worse, they’re brand new ideas.

And while I don’t have children, I’m also neither in my 20s nor retired. I just bought a house (which may or may not have been a wise money decision – time will tell) and am likely to be taking on new responsibilities at work. My novellas have yet to take off, so I have to continue with my day job to pay the numerous bills. It would be ever-so-nice if the idea machine in my head would just give it a rest for a year or so, give me some time to finish one of my projects before adding to the pile.

So many readers have a never-ending TBR pile. I wonder if they realize that there are authors that seem to have a never-ending TBW pile, as well?

-K