Time management becomes a trick in a low-residency program.  At the beginning of the semester I looked at my activities and wondered what would survive contact with my MFA program.  This is how it has played out, to date:

• Work:  Work continues unabated, which is important to maintaining the style of life to which I have become accustomed: fed, clothed, housed and able to cover bills.  I have snuck in a few minutes of homework here and there when things are slow, but no one seems to mind.
• Capoeira:  I’ve been able to keep up my schedule for both training and teaching, but I have gotten hurt a couple of times (right now I’m benched with a hand that is most likely sprained).  I suspect I’m not doing enough stretching on the off days.
• Gaming: I’ve continued running my once-a-month D&D campaign, and playing in two other once-a-month games.  4^th Edition has made this much easier for me, because the mechanics of preparing for the game take much less time than in previous editions.
• Other social gatherings:  Do occasional e-mails and text messages count?  I’d say this is the area that suffered the most cutbacks.  In the last few months I’ve been able to make it to a Rock Band gathering – my first – but that’s it.  Fortunately my wife and I have still found time each other.

All of these changes and considerations are, of course, to accommodate my class work.  I’m glad I love what I’m studying, because low-residency or not this is a real graduate program, complete with attendant workload.  I’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining my focus and getting as much out of each assignment as possible, but that may be one of the advantages of returning to school after working for several years: I know how to motivate myself.

I haven’t been perfect though.  I’m sure I could have read some of my assigned reading more closely.  I think I’ve made up for that a bit by working even harder on the assignments: everything I’ve turned in since the residency has been either completely new writing or a substantial revision of an existing piece, revised for that assignment.

My personal writing time has shrunk considerably.  I tried to fit it in early in the semester, but found I was getting too exhausted mentally to continue work on anything substantial.  I’ve fit in some time for flash fiction and short story writing, but I’ve held off working on the novel until the summer break.

This is actually as much for the good of the novel-in-progress as anything else.  I’ve been deep in the study of the craft of fiction, examining every tool in the writer’s toolbox from as many angles as possible.  It’s fantastic, but it also has me constantly re-thinking what I’ve written in light of this week’s topics.  This is great for my writing, but not conducive to working on a long form project.  Better to wait until the semester is over and I’ve had a chance to assimilate what I’ve learned.

I haven’t been idle though.  Here’s an example of how I am applying my studies so far.  Two years ago I wrote a short story that I liked.  I looked at it six months ago and knew something was wrong with it, but could not figure out what.  One month ago I reread it, saw why it didn’t work, and knew how to fix it.  My rewrite was well-received by my workshop group, and from their comments I can see one or two little things to change that would make it even better.  One more revision and I’ll see what I can do about getting it published.

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