To blog or not to blog?

The Quest
You aim to become a published author. You intend to do this by finishing your first manuscript and then either self publish or query agents/publishers (or simultaneously do both).

 I "plan" to finish my first YA paranormal series, The Silken Threads, and  then self publish the first three books in e-book format while simultaneously querying agents/publishers.

The Quandary

Your days are too short to do all the things required of you as an author in these new technological times? You need to write; blog; interact; write some more; edit; network; research; comment; be funny and engaging; and perhaps you have to work or parent or occasionally sleep.

Although, I cannot say my days are too short. My days are looooong. I rise with the children, long before the sun wakes, and I retire long after the moon shines. Most nights I get six hours sleep: not too shabby for some, pretty poor for others. I make lists and I schedule routines. I achieve an awful lot in one day. But...

I never seem to achieve what it is I set out to do.

Take this blog for instance.

I have three days a week to write. I aim to do a short blog post on each of those days to kick start my writing day. I even went so far as to declare my intention in the banner line of this blog! Do I end up writing a blog post on each of those three days? Nu-uh.

Today is Tuesday, I am only just now posting Mayhem&Madness!! Where did Monday go? Lost in the madness I assume.

The Query

Do you or do you not continue down this blogging path?

You call yourself a writer. You have several writing projects on the go, non-fiction and fiction alike, and you have numerous other writerly activities happening in the sidelines: blogs; websites; critique partners; writer's group; book club; competitions etc... 

You have taken the first steps toward a writerly career and now you need to finish your books and sell them.

To do this in today's market place  you know  you must secure a loyal following of like minded writers and readers to support your journey and for you to likewise support theirs. You have taken the first steps to do that but now you are faltering.

There are so many other things that need doing, like the final edit of Book 1, and more often than not these things take priority over the blog. And sometime you get stuck in the wide world of webbing that is social media and you find your entire day has been eaten up by a big hungry blog spider.

How do you break through the cycle?
How do you get better at juggling all of these things?

I don't have an answer to provide you that you don't already know. I too am stuck in the webbing.
I am tempted to suggest giving up on sleeping, or eating and cleaning.

Unreasonable solutions aside, the best I can come up with is this:

You practice.
You write.

And you blog about practicing and writing in a funny engaging way that will entice like minded readers and writers into following your journey and hopefully they will stick with you long enough to eventually buy and read your book- when at last you get it up and out there!

Just know -- you are not alone...

Happy Blogging