The Juggling Act - Karen Ball

Running Marathons

Making Marmalade

Sewing Dresses

Knitting Jumpers

Growing Vegetables

Tutoring Writing Courses

Being A Lawyer

Clearing Out Ponds

Training Dogs

Attending Football Matches

Writing Blogs

Organising Conferences

Buying Shoes

Holding Down Day Jobs

Planning The Ebook Revolution

Recognise yourself or a friend? These are just some of the things that some of the authors I know are busy with when they're not writing novels, illustrating picture books, turning their hand to TV scripts or putting together a non-fiction proposal. Busy bunch, aren't we? And that's the tip of the iceberg.

If you have an established author career, you have many other things on your plate. Maybe you're busy promoting book one whilst editing book two and panicking about the deadline on book three. Transatlantic Skype interview at 9pm? Sure - all in an author's typical working day.

Or perhaps you're at the start of your writing career? A book or two out, flush with success, but still holding down the day job. That's a lot of work squeezed into a week. You may sometimes dream of giving up the 9-5 and its regular income for the giddy roller coaster of a full-time career as an author. What's that? Not just yet? Sensible decision - for your bank balance, at least, if not for your sanity.

Or maybe you're a fledgling author, working on your first novel. That probably means you're getting up before work or cancelling plans at the weekend in order to get a complete draft down on paper. Whilst all the time telling people you're 'not an author, really'. No, just practising. People ask you when the real work will start. Feel free to respond with a hollow laugh.

It's a lot of hard graft being an author. If you can't already multi-task you'd better learn quick. This career of ours is also a lot of fun, creatively satisfying and a huge and fascinating learning process. It keeps us on our toes.

How many balls do you keep in the air and do you have tips for making an author life manageable? I'd love to hear. No, really - I'd LOVE to hear!

Here's me and a friendly bloke I met in Covent Garden earlier this year. One of us is doing a lot of juggling. Can you guess who?

You can visit my website at www.karen-ball.com.