Wednesday Q & J: December 13, 2023

Q:  People talk about work/life balance a lot these days. You don’t really do that. You work when you want… What do you consider your work/life balance?

J: First I am lucky because I LOVE my work. I rarely call it “work.”  It’s storytelling, or writing a poem or poems.

But of course it is work.  I am at the computer a good part of any day.

Actually, I get up and dressed as if going to a job, because that helps me treat it as a job. I may be working on finishing a book, or re-reading and rewriting a  manuscript, or just trying to take a new idea and turn it into something wonderful. And since a good many of my friends (and children and grandchildren) are also in the book business as writers, or illustrators or editors or agents or writing teachers, I can have it both ways. For example just a few days ago I had lunch with a friend and, as we talked, I told her an anecdote about my name and suddenly she said–there’s a picture book there. When I left to go home, I wrote the first half of it down, and sent it to her. She said, “where is the rest!!!” Which I will probably write after I get through these Q & J  questions!