Insecure Writer's Support Group: Can I Get Another Lifetime?

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     
      By the time this post goes live it'll be the beginning of April which means that Camp NaNoWriMo will be in full swing. Even though I've taken the first week off work I know I'll probably be behind in my writing because aside from taking on Camp I've also got other projects happening on the side and the masochist in me has decided that it's a great idea to start writing Marvel fan fiction.
        I don't know how some people do it. I've been internet stalking again and there are people on the web who have multiple accounts on social media, have a gazillion hobbies outside of writing, children to look after, day jobs to work at. And still they're producing more books than I have. This is incredible to me.
       If I had another lifetime to play with I don't know if I'd be able to go any faster or focus any better. There are just so many things that I would love to be good at but which require time and dedication that I am sorely lacking. I would so love to be a graphic artist and be able to produce images from my own novels. Or learn a trade of some kind. But I guess for now I'll just be happy with winning Camp and possibly catching up on all of the reading that I should have done months ago.

Misc Monday: Multitasking Madness

As I write this post, I'm also checking out books on Smashwords, emailing people, reading a book and doing up a shopping list. Oh and did I forget seriously blog stalking? To an untrained observer, this might all seem very impressive. Until they take a closer look at my output to productivity ratio. Which is very much on the low side.
        I am convinced that whoever came up with the idea of multitasking has a lot of time on their hands to get all caught up in the different tasks. Me, I have scant little time and what is supposed to be a time saving device has turned into a bit of a time guzzler instead.
        Take blog stalking for example. Any normal person would open a few pages and read a post and leave a comment right? That's too easy for me. I open all the unread blogs on my blog roll, then all the ones I find interesting on my dashboard. From there, I troll through all of them, reading, not necessarily commenting unless I know exactly what I want to say. If there's an interesting link that someone has posted, I'll click on that as well. Before I know it, there are about twenty tabs opens on my screen and I'm having trouble remember something I read ten minutes earlier. It just so happens that an alert on my phone might go off with a text message or I need to put a book on my goodreads to be read pile. And then I'll get an email which I need to respond to right away.
       I feel the same way about my TBR and also the books I have agreed to read for review. Right now I'm "reading" about six books and have another few waiting to be picked up from the library. I've taken on so many, on the assumption that I will be able to do it all. The fact of the matter is: I can't. As BJ suggested in THIS POST deadlines and taking on too much usually leads to situations of high stress. High stress leads to sickness (at least that's what I've noticed for myself). So I've decided to dispense with the multitasking farce and stick to The Hare and the Tortoise philosophy: slow and steady wins the race.
       So guys, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm going to stop trying to be more than I can be.