(Mama Kat Writer's Workshop post is below this one!!)
Remember that witty, eye-catching mama on the playground today who spoke so eloquently?
Well, that wasn't me.
I was the one standing behind her, checking the back of my two-year-old's diaper while keeping an eye on my older daughter as she attempted to climb the rock wall. Perhaps you might have noticed me after all if you wondered why that mommy, who obviously hadn't showered in two days, was carrying a small notepad in her back pocket and a pen stuck through the messy knot on top of her head.
Do I really get a chance to write when I am at the playground? No, not usually, but the pad of paper makes me feel better, inspired, hopeful. Playing with my girls outside makes me feel just as happy.
So I've been wondering - just how do moms who write and publish books and articles have time to write. Some of them have more children than me, some have twins or triplets, some work full-time. It's already the 6th month of 2011 and I've only completed and submitted one short story.
So here's what I've come up with on my search for the truth:
(Actually I just asked my favorite writer mamas "How do you make time to write?" and this is what they said:)
Suzanne Kamata (author/editor) -
"When my now twelve-year-old twins were babies, I asked people (my husband, my mother-in-law, friends) to look after them for an hour or so once or twice a week while I walked down to a nearby cafe with my notebook to write. It's important to ask for help." (http://www.suzannekamata.com)
Mary Jo Campbell of Writers Inspired -
"Ha! Well, I feel like a poser even replying to this question, because as of late, I haven’t been finding (or making) time to write. Although, as every true writer knows, if we’re not writing, we’re a miserable mess. So, I do the best I can to fit in blocks of writing time.
Since I work full time, I’ve dedicated my one hour lunch breaks to my writing. I’ll either sit in my car or walk across the street to Borders, where I’m currently rewriting chapter one of my YA novel (again!) It’s not ideal, since the words really begin to flow just as my lunch time is ending. Sigh. I also try to utilize the 30 or 40 minutes after my youngest (age 7) goes to bed and before my husband and I try to have some quality time. I always think the weekends will allow uninterrupted time when we don’t have family plans and I’m not teaching my writing workshops, but alas, Facebook, email and my blog win over any creative ventures. I don’t have a set writing schedule, but I do seem to get some (not as much as I’d like) done. I write better with snippets of time, rather than long blocks – because I‘m a big procrastinator, then beat myself if I didn’t rewrite 8 chapters in my 3-hr afternoon. Such is the life of a writer!"
When married mom of two boys, Mary Jo Campbell, isn't refereeing fights over the Xbox or commuting to/from her day job, she's working on her YA novel. Mary Jo also teaches young writers' workshops several times a year. She shares advice and inspiration for writers of all ages at her blog: http://writerinspired.wordpress.com
"Here, there and everywhere. I don't pressure myself to write at a certain time every day. That works for some people, but I'm not an every day kind of person. I believe that a lot of the work of a writer happens in my head - dreaming, thinking, scheming. So sometimes, if I'm at the gym, those long 30 minutes on the treadmill will result in a great idea and I have stooped to typing on my iPhone while exercising. Not a super safe idea, but I'm grabbing the time. Sometimes, I will make myself stay up after the kids are asleep to write. Sometimes, I'm too exhausted. Mostly, I don't have enough time to write as much as I want. I have learned to give myself permission to be less productive as a writer. We will all get the time back - whether we want it or not. Day by day. Word by word. Keep writing - however much you can, whenever you can - and the stories will build. Slowly, but surely."
Cori Howard
Founder, The Momoir Project
Editor, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood
Mom to 10-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl
"How do you find time to write? Not a question that can be answered in a sentence, because juggling the two, the writing life and the life of a mother, gets at the heart of the journey we embark on once we become parents. There's a reason nobody else in your playgroup is writing a novel. (If they are, I want to be in your playgroup.) Writing is about taking risks. Motherhood is in many ways about keeping a weather eye out for danger and avoiding risks. To balance those two warring impulses takes real work.
Before my first child was born, the advice I received was "write while the baby sleeps." Because I expected do be able to do exactly that, what was I blessed with? A child who despised sleep. And on the rare occasions when she did sleep, sometimes I needed to sleep myself. Or read a People magazine. Or stare at the wall.
Now my children are in elementary school and I do, in fact, have more time to work. But during their younger years I was never "getting as much done" as I thought I should be.
My advice: remember that it never does fields a disservice to lie fallow for a couple of years, in fact, it makes them more fertile. And it's okay to write about what you're living, even if you're just writing it down on slips of paper or in a journal, even if sometimes it feels like what you're living might be a tad... boring. We live in a world that likes exciting "plots" but there are beautiful stories to be found in the diapers and the late nights, the laundry and the love."
"For me, there is an alchemy of accountability that happens with a deadline. I prioritize projects that have due dates and build them into my schedule so I can be sure they'll happen. When I don't have a real deadline, I invent one to keep me moving, and then work with a writing friend to check-in about my progress."
Sage Cohen is a single mom of one toddler, two dogs and three cats. She works full-time as a freelance writer.
Before my son, who is almost three, was born, I woke at 5:30 on purpose, and crept delightedly upstairs to my little office space and wrote for several hours before my "real" work began (I'm a freelance editor/writer/writing teacher). The moment we brought him home, I knew those days were over, and I will not lie that I suffered quite a lot of grief over the loss of that precious, quiet morning time. Since then, like all other mother writers I know, I write whenever I can. Before I had daycare, I wrote during naps, and I wrote one-handed while nursing him. I wrote chicken scrawl on scraps of paper in my car, and in the bathroom while visiting my parents.
But I am now in the position where my son is in daycare five half-days a week, and so I once again write around the cracks of my work, whenever and wherever I can. It helps me to be working on a specific project--I'm a novelist by passion--because then I can bring myself to it with intention. I do miss the days of freewriting stories and the like, but now I need structure. And as I have only one child, and he is growing up fast, I know that this time is going to go so fast and I will be clutching after these days when he is young.
Jordan Rosenfeld is the author of Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time (Writer's Digest Books), and with Rebecca Lawton, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life (BeijaFlor Books). She teaches writing, edits manuscripts and hangs out with her own wild muse as often as possible when not mothering 3 year old Benjamin and talking about life with her psychologist husband, Erik. www.jordanrosenfeld.net.
First of all: I make time to write; if I waited until I found time, it might be years before I wrote anything!
I take my toddler to a babysitter’s three mornings a week while my older son is in preschool. That’s my dedicated work time. If I have a labor-intensive writing project that takes lots of time and brainpower, that’s when I do it. Or, I sometimes write on weekends while my husband takes the kids since that’s the only time I have big blocks of time.
In the afternoon, I can maybe steal an hour or two to write or follow up on submissions during nap/quiet time. I don’t like to write in the evenings because that’s my only time to relax and hang out with my husband, but occasionally I’ll write a blog post or something that takes less concentration.
The hardest thing about writing while raising kids, in my opinion, is that you have small chunks of time in which to work and you have to accept that you’ll often get interrupted. It just goes with the territory.
- Abigail Green is a part-time freelance writer, writing instructor and blogger, and mom of 2 small boys. Her blog is
AbbyOfftheRecord.com
Ahhh! So that is how it is done :) This really has been a big help for me, because (1) I feel better knowing that moms everywhere find it challenging to make time to write, and (2) I feel hopeful that I can do what these amazing women are doing! Thank you writer mamas for all of your advice and support you've given us here today on my blog!
