Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Blessings and Challenges

I have the incredibly lucky job of being a stay at home mom.  I love that I get to be here with the kids and spend time with them, or playing with them.  We love to read together and I enjoy the time I get to spend with them watching them grow up.  This opportunity also gives me the chance to write at home during the day.  Some days are better than others. Sometimes the kids are at friends houses, or with their grandparents, these days are easy to write on because I have no distractions. Page after page flows out without a single interruption. These are good writing days.

I have other good writing days though.  Those are the days that my eleven year old daughter gives me an idea and we talk things over and over until the story comes together. Or when I am watching my boys storm the swing set, sending all the neighborhood girls screaming, and I have the perfect scene in my head.  I love to rock my other daughter to sleep and night and think about how lucky I am to have all this inspiration running around my house.

Sometimes said inspiration gets a little to real.  One time about a year ago I was working hard to edit a story and my youngest needed a drink from the kitchen.  I was trying hard to get just this last paragraph done and she was standing next to me asking over and over again, "I a gink!" Finally with just a little irritation, I put the last punctuation on the sentence and hurried to the kitchen to get her a gink. A couple of days later when I was able to get back to the manuscript I was reading though the last edited paragraph and much to my amusement I read. "I need a drink!" Right at the end of my sentence.

Then again there are some days I get no writing done at all. There are so many other things to do such as laundry, dishes, homework, reading, running to and from activities. These are the hardest writing days of all because I usually have plot, or conversations going on in my head all the time.  Once I was at the grocery store by myself in front of the cereal thinking over a complicated scene for my book.  It wasn't until a lady walked by me, giving me a strange look that I realized I had been talking out loud, having a strange conversation with the people in my head. She probably wondered if I was insane.

Over all being a mother is my first choice, and because of that I am willing to have some not so great writing days.  It is never truly easy.  Life is hard all around.  Everyone struggles with getting it all done in a day.  I know some writers who work and have children and I appreciate their struggles.  I know compared to some my silly little life seems like nothing, but I sure enjoy every crazy minute of it!

Monday, July 16, 2012

Work on Writing or Work Outside?

Saturday we spent the day outside pulling weeds, mowing and trimming, and planting bushes and trees. The yard looks great but my manuscript is a little skimpy.  For months I have been slowly working on two WIP's, one called Craig's Ridge, a Historical Romance and the second is Silverberry, a Young Adult Fantasy.  I would love to work on both of them but Summer has completely taken over.  Now that things are slowly winding down I hope to be able to spend at least half an hour a day on both WIP's, I would really love to get one or both of them out by the time school starts.  Wish me luck!