After Page One: Finding Time

A guest post to motivate, encourage, and inspire
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The Meantime

 

There are mounds of laundry. Children demand attention, dinner, and Legos. The overnight shift ends at dawn. Brush several teeth and wolf down a waffle, transition to the sun.

School buses and practices await, snow days don’t exist for mothers who mother. Children are bowling pins, uneven weights to juggle while you balance on a tightrope and jump through hoops.

Yet when, asks your editor, holding patiently on the phone, while you thrust teenagers and toddlers into a car containing too many elbows, when do you write?

Easy. You write all the time.

Take a clue from Agatha Christie: “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”

In truth, an office is a state of mind. Household chores and caretaking award the pleasure of being productive, and it helps to have a tidy space when you create.

However, Christie hit on something much baser in our makeup, which is nothing less than the meaning of life. Stories and poetry connect us to one another, words woven together create emotions, and that’s how we identify ourselves as human. If you sat for hours in a blank room, without interruptions, your creations would be dull and lifeless, much like the immaculate taupe walls of your uncluttered office.

When do the words flow? Curses and expletives burble from your mouth when you are late for work. Prayers and promises dribble out when your child spikes a fever. Screams are pulled from your chest without warning when shadows dart in an unlit room.

Life is desire, promise, devastation. For creative juices to simmer, you must simply live.

Shuttling kids around town, baking 200 last-minute cookies for the entire second grade, and doing those stacks of dirty dishes keeps us grounded in reality. That is how we create believable characters, edgy dialogue that resonates, and fantasy worlds that are built upon our own. Life goes on. Writing is what happens in the meantime.

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Join our After Page One series.  We’re looking for 300 to 500-word guest posts that motivate, inspire, and encourage other mama-writers, and we’d love to feature YOUR thoughts about getting started, getting back to a writing project, integrating writing with motherhood, reading, or having a positive attitude.   The list is endless, but here are some questions that might help you get started. We’ll publish a short bio at the bottom of your post so readers can learn more about you and your projects.