bury that horse in the ground

I met with a memoirist who used to be in army last week. I liked her immediately, she was spunky and had military discipline written all over her. Among other things, we talked about the elbow grease of self-promotion, of building the kind of platform it takes to make it these days. She was hip to it, she was unafraid of the internet, the twitter. She talked about meeting other writers at a recent conference who wanted nothing to do with all of that. We both shook our heads. 

On the one hand, we live in an exciting time when authors are more empowered than ever before with tools like blogging (he-ey), Twitter, Facebook etc at their disposal. I spend no small amount of energy using these myself and/ or drilling the authors I work with on the importance of them.

But secretly? I get it. I understand why you don't want to do any of it. I do! You want to go to your quiet room and do the important writer-ly writing and all the other stuff distracts from that. And you need to spend time on your writing or you'll have nothing to promote.

Lately, I've found myself getting nostalgic about the days before I ever even tried to get published, when novels were the only things getting my love and attention. Back then I didn't have to worry about being realistic, which is a nice place to be as a writer. 

So how do you find time for both? Early mornings? No television? Interns chained to the radiator?