How Do I Find Time to Write?

Prologue: I wrote this a few years ago when I still had a three year old at home. Now I'm living the dream of having a school aged kid away for part of the day. Once he started kindergarten is when I finally got to work on my firs novel, which was published in 2015. Anyhoo, here is the piece I wrote about making time to write with a needy little one around.

I spend less time playing with Legos, and more time having my leg yanked on, while I'm typing. I repeat the phrase, “just give me five more minutes”. There is some time available when the kidlet is watching an insufferable cartoon. In these moments, diverting my attention to a new activity (writing) saves my sanity. There is that glorious time from 7:30-10:00 p.m. when I can watch Modern Family or write. Usually T.V. wins. It feels good sometimes not to write and to feel good enough about making a meatloaf and keeping my kid alive for another day.

My kidlet knows that in between time at the duck park, indoor play gym, library after a play date or gymnastics, I may try to blog. I've shown him the blogs and have tried to explain how to upload photos. If I pretend my hobby is “educational” for him, it assuages my guilt for not being 100% present all.the.time.

Perfectionist is not a word that describes me. This helps me get things written. Nothing I do is perfect but it seems to be good enough, most of the time. I write in run on sentences and don't edit enough. Sometimes I start sentences with But and And, use cliches while throwing caution to the wind. What I love about blogging is that no one expects every word to be professionally edited and there is immediate gratification. I can't say the same about the pages sitting unread on my laptop, wishing they'd be read or published one day. Those pages are just much sadder than my pithy blogs.

Three year-old is pulling out my power cord as we speak. Is he trying to tell me something? I'm trying to teach him that Mommy needs time for stuff she thinks is fun, too.