How Important is it to You?

From 2006-2010 I worked two full time jobs, one part time job, I went to school full time year round, and had to play all the roles that come with being a wife and mother. I had what I called permanent writer’s block as well. I couldn’t find the ability within myself to write anything more than personal journal entries and bits and pieces of choppy scenes that I felt was never good enough to go anywhere. I was really very hard on myself. I journal a lot as I was going though some very personal issues.

When I graduated college with my BA, I found myself at a loss with all my time. I no longer worked all those jobs and I no longer had long nights of studying and late evenings in class. I now have one decent paying job with good hours. Do I have time to write now? HA!

I wake up at five am to drive my husband to work. Then at 6:30 I wake my kids up to get them ready for school. They are off to school at 7:45. I have enough time to cook something and do a load of laundry and prepare myself for work. On Monday-Wednesday I leave for my internship for my Master’s Degree at 8:45am. I don’t get home until 3:30pm. On Thursday-Sunday I work from 9pm to 7am at the hotel. That gives me enough time to get the dishes clean, kids showered, socks matched, maybe another load of clothes put away and by then I am running on empty! My mind is mentally shutting down.

So when do I write? I write on my lunch breaks. I write while I am in the shopping aisle. I  no longer have my peak writing hours. I lap whatever minutes I can to write. I write on my days off in between laundry and cleaning. I don’t watch television at all anymore beyond whatever little I find on Netflix or Hulu, maybe seven hours a week…if that!

I am getting ready to publish one novel this month (maybe April) and another one later this year, and then one more in December. So I am writing. I am! Why? How? Whenever! Because it’s important to me.

How important is it to you to write that novel? If it is that big of a passion…if you really really want to write it…you will find time. You will spot every spare second, pulling them out from every nook and cranny you can to get that novel wrote.

Cartoon reprinted from http://inkygirl.com/