Sunday 12 July 2009

Time Management? What Time Management? - Charlie Butler


Well, that taught me a lesson. Last weekend I was co-organizing a three-day conference about one of my favourite children’s authors, Diana Wynne Jones. There were 74 people there, from a total of 14 countries. Even for someone with the multitasking skills of a six-armed goddess this would have been a hefty undertaking, and for your poor correspondent it was daunting indeed, though there were considerably more than six capable arms and legs devoted to the conference’s service. I’m glad to say that it went as smoothly as such an undertaking ever can, but by Sunday evening I was pretty pooped.
Then, on Monday morning, my partner and I headed off to another conference in west Wales (this time organized by someone else) where I was to give a paper on the Romans in Britain as represented in children’s books. That was fun too, and included appearances by Michael Cadnum and Caroline Lawrence amongst the assorted scholars. (ABBA's own Lucy Coats would have been there too, but was indisposed - hope you're feeling better, Lucy!). But so much concentrated networking, listening, thinking and socializing have left me a little bleary-brained - and somehow it slipped my mind that I was meant to be posting a blog here on Monday. I totally missed the ABBA birthday party, too! Mea culpa. It was only ever going to be a breathless piece about how hard it is to fit the writing life in with the day-job life, sometimes, but in fact I seemed to have demonstrated that rather than talked about it. So you can think of my post’s non-appearance as a piece of post-modern performance art, right?
Yeah, right. Now, back to the writing pad...

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