In the early stages of a novel I read until I have enough of what I need of the book to start writing. I don't talk on the phone or go out for lunch or pay bills or any of that until I have done either seven hours or seven pages. Although, the older I get, the more I find I can be less rigid about the program and still get the work done. My writing vacations are reading. I don't know what to say about 'having it all.
Writers are alone too much as it is.
I think that learning to manage the emotional consequences of being alone too much is by far the hardest part of the job, woman or man, single or married. Writers such as Anne Rivers Siddons and Penelope Fitzgerald write glowingly about your work. If the question is, what writers have I read all of more than once and mostly more than twice, the list is Austen, Dickens, Cather, Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Scott Fitzgerald. I read a great deal of biography as well, and social history. It's not too soon to ask about the next project, but as it happens it's too soon to answer.