Time Management

I want to have time to:
*read trashy novels for pure pleasure
*read classics and understand them
*paint my nails twice a week
*use teeth plackers
*write letters
*listen to a whole CD album and read the lyrics

I thought I'd have time to do these things, now that I've finished my novel, Replacing Angel, and sent it off to agents. But funnily enough it seems like I've got LESS time when I'm not working on a particular project...

I become more organised when I write; my life has a structure and I feel focused. Now I'm drifting like a discarded water bottle in the sea. Do I have a message inside me? I don't know. When I shuffled my iTunes to start writing this blog post the first song that started playing was Lou Reed's "There's no time"! My message to myself and everyone else is that you have to make time for things - if you don't you'll drift to a distant shore of a desert island where there's nobody to pick you up ...

Despite all this drifting I've had the first really productive day for about a week.
*I washed my clothes
*Re-wrote Steal from the rich and give to the poor, a short story that I wrote a year ago, and sent it off to a couple of people for feedback (am planning to submit it to SPARKS - a short fiction night)
*Worked on a poem for a friend's wedding
*Booked a night at a hostel in London as I need to stay there on my way to a literature festival in Gothenburg at the end of March (and in London I'll attend a launch party for 3 Myriad novelists)
*Wrote a very short postcard and posted it
*Power-walked along the seafront and did some food shopping on the way back
*Went through my writing workshop "It's raining words"(that I'm doing at Hove Library next Monday) with my friend Sophie
*Made some notes and prepared stuff for the workshop
*Booked a train ticket to London (£3 advance on the national rail website)
*Printed Google maps of parts of London and Gothenburg

And now ... it's 10 pm and I've been up for 13 hours, and the only real leisure time I've had was when I had breakfast and read Patricia Highsmith's Carol. I don't feel sorry for myself. I designed this day (made a list before going to bed last night) and am very happy and grateful that I achieved so much. It's a mystery though that there's a still a pile of socks and knickers on my bed waiting to be sorted out after being in the tumble dryer ... Hopefully I'll get to bed before midnight.