I often get asked, "How do you find time to write while working full time and keeping up with your three children?" I usually smile, laugh, snort, roll my eyes, or shrug my shoulders. That pretty much sums up how I balance it all.
So how does my family survive my writing? Well, when the kids were little, they could care less about "Mommy Alone" time. I had to squeeze it in during naps or late at night after they went to bed. Being a girl who needs ten hours of sleep at night, I only did late night writing on summer vacation. It's actually getting easier as the kids get older, mainly because they don't want "Mommy Time". They want me to ignore them so they can binge watch tv, or spend eight hours on PlayStation, or send 4,597 Snapchats to their friends in one afternoon. With Mom preoccupied with her writing, the kids aren't being nagged at to do chores or to turn off the Internet (because she needs Internet too!).
So how does my family survive my writing? Well, when the kids were little, they could care less about "Mommy Alone" time. I had to squeeze it in during naps or late at night after they went to bed. Being a girl who needs ten hours of sleep at night, I only did late night writing on summer vacation. It's actually getting easier as the kids get older, mainly because they don't want "Mommy Time". They want me to ignore them so they can binge watch tv, or spend eight hours on PlayStation, or send 4,597 Snapchats to their friends in one afternoon. With Mom preoccupied with her writing, the kids aren't being nagged at to do chores or to turn off the Internet (because she needs Internet too!).
My family is surviving my writing time quite well. It's when I come out of my cave that they have to look out. It's when I see the kitchen is a mess, we have no food in the fridge, the laundry is piling up, the floor needs to be swept, that the kids need to run for cover. When I unplug the Internet, turn on the radio and dole out chores...watch out!
I'll never (please don't hold me to this) make my kids sacrifice their extra-curricular activities and sports for my writing. My writing goes on hold when I have to drive them to practices and games (my laptop comes to practices--I hide in the car or in the school and write or edit). I'll always be their biggest cheerleader and snap too many pictures during their games. I'm proud of my kids. I hope they're proud of me.
It's a nice compromise we have going. We're all surviving quite well. And the husband? Well, he knows how busy I am carting the kids here and there while he's at work, so when I tell him I have a deadline or need to escape to write, he's pretty chill about it. The only thing getting in my way is the day job
It's a nice compromise we have going. We're all surviving quite well. And the husband? Well, he knows how busy I am carting the kids here and there while he's at work, so when I tell him I have a deadline or need to escape to write, he's pretty chill about it. The only thing getting in my way is the day job
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