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CHRONIC MULTI-TASKER

Chronic Multi-tasker
Hey gang! I’m very excited to be posting...finally. I’ve been a member for a few short months and have enjoyed lurking and reading about all your great books and adventures. And I’m happy to present my debut novel Find My Way Home. A contemporary story about a small town Southern interior designer, wanting more from life and thinking if she could only hit the road for the big city, she might find what she’s looking for. *cough, cough* Well, we all know that’s not necessarily true.

My heroine Bertie suffers from being an out-of-control multi-tasker (much like her author). Bertie not only designs lovely homes for a living, but you can find her dog-walking, feeding her housebound neighbor, decorating for the downtown festival and waitressing at her brother’s diner, especially on Roller Derby night (and she can’t skate!) Her need to be needed stems from losing her parents as a teenager, but it also makes her most famous and hunky client Keith very nervous. Can she finish his job in time? Because he needs her tempting, curvaceous self out of his house and his head before he does something really stupid...like fall for her!

Like Bertie, I have a constant need to be doing something…anything. It’s a terrible sickness. Not sure how I got this way except I’m from a very large family (one of nine siblings) of Type A personalities where we all kept busy avoiding chores we hated like: cleaning the basement, picking up sticks, and unloading and putting away four baskets of groceries every week. Everyone, including our entire neighborhood block, knew to be scarce on Friday afternoons when my mother would roll up the driveway with a packed station wagon of groceries.

The problem with being a chronic multi-tasker is you never learn to relax and smell the roses…literally. I have to force myself to really hear my child's story while I read a recipe, text a message, make a list, sweep the floor and toss another load of laundry in the washer. That’s manic! I’m not proud of this ability, because quite frankly, it’s exhausting. But I’m not alone here. Come on…show of hands. Yep, there’s a bunch of you multi-taskers reading this right now, making a mental grocery list or thinking about paying bills, or remembering you need to add the final coat of lacquer to the seaworthy boat you built. Am I right??? *nodding*
For me, it has become a way of life. Yes, I love to write, but I’m also an interior designer like Bertie, personal chef to several clients, and mother to two great, wonderfully, self-sufficient kids, who still need me every now and then. So, like my energetic heroine, I create pockets of time early in the morning and late in the evening devoted to writing/working. And when I break and go for walks, I force myself to stop…and smell the roses, gardenias, honeysuckle...and remember to breathe.

How many of you multi-task with relish or under duress?
Find My Way Home, First in series
Not So New In Town, coming 2015
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/michelesummers5/

Comments

  1. I am fantastically organized when the pressure is on and it really matters. In the mean time my home looks like it threw up inside itself. So that probably means I am always multi-tasking, since everything is always in a state of construction?! :)

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    1. Susan:
      Uh, yep. That's what it means. Always a project or something to clutter your space. I'm Martha Stewart on steroids when company is about to pop over. I get it.

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  2. I'm the same. It's such a bad thing too because, like you said, I don't relax. Welcome to the blog!

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    1. Shana:
      Let me tell you...not relaxing is unhealthy!! I'm having to learn the hard way. We all need to stop...the madness. Thanks for checking in. Now, go prop your feet up and read a book. lol.

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  3. Michele, I don't see how you do it...and I've seen you do it!
    My muti-tasking is half duress, half self-imposed, especially in the morning. From 6-9 am it's a whirlwind of hungry cats, high-energy kid, waffles, toys, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and finally dressing myself in something that won't scare the other parents at preschool drop off, all the while thinking about what kind of word count I'll actually get between 9 am and noon.

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    Replies
    1. Laura:
      You're driven and you get it done, but yeah, sometimes it ain't purty! But at least you unwind at night...smart woman that you are. Keep it up, my good friend. Love ya.

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  4. Congrats on your book! And I *wish* I could efficiently multi-task. Sadly, not so much.

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  5. Terri:
    You're way better off...it's not all it's cracked up to be. Trust me. Thanks for the well wishes.

    ReplyDelete

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