The Good and the Bad News

For those of you with small children who are telling yourself you’ll write someday when the kids are grown, here’s the good and the bad news – your family will just get bigger and more complicated and there will probably be less time to write. We just had Thanksgiving – a three day holiday that involved dinner with a daughter’s boyfriend’s family, then a trip up to Lake Arrowhead and fourteen family members for dinner at my cabin, then another family dinner with a daughter who had rented a condo at the lake for her family and stepfamily. All of this was wonderful –but the only writing I could manage was one

journal entry Sunday morning when everyone was sleeping.

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Coming up this month we’re giving the immediate family early Christmas dinner (nineteen of us), a wedding at our house for a daughter’s boyfriend’s sister, tickets to The Nutcracker  with daughters/granddaughters and one grandson, Montana family spending a few days, Christmas Eve with my husband’s family, and two family birthdays. I love all this – family is my priority. But a number of whole days in December on my calendar have been X-ed out for writing days – appointments with myself.

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Most of you have similarly busy Decembers – Let us know how you’re fitting your writing into the holidays. Or if you'r just putting all those books and essays and stories on the back burner until January.

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Comments

[Lou Woods]

Was this the good news or the bad news? Make sure to have your digital camera along and capture those moments and observations you want to incorporate into writing but don't have time to at the moment. Not just the posed family portraits, but get the writing scratched into the bathroom stall in the highway reststop on your way, the backside of the old lady that just shuffled past you on the way to the store. At least you are collecting material to use in the calm after the storm.

Lou Woods (http://writemyselfahappyending.blogspot.com/)

[Barbara]

Lou - thanks for your comment - Good news is that your family grows up and expands (which I love), bad news is that time doesn't expand -

[Denise]

I need other people to make me write--being in an MFA program with deadlines, my naive family who's waiting for me to be on Oprah, my friend Elizabeth who keeps getting things published and then I think, wow, I'm going to send that magazine or journal a piece. If I lived in a garret or on a dessert island, I'd just drink a lot of wine and dream about writing. See, Barbara you're making me write this.

[Barbara]

Denise - I read your photograph description in C & C to my class yesterday and told them you would get your memoir published soon - I believe this absolutely. So - write!

[Lisa Manterfield]

I have an online buddy that I met in one of your classes a few years ago. We've been meeting on Skype and writing for 20 minutes at a time. In 20 minutes we can scratch out a scene, a character sketch, do a writing prompt. We've been trying to do this 2 or 3 times during the day and it's amazing how quickly a pile of work accummulates. Come January 2, we will each have work ready to edit.

[Jenny R]

Oh my gosh, thank you for this. I have barely written a lick since the day I left for Thanksgiving last Tuesday and I have no small children. Only dealing with adults here! Of course, a lot of my time this week is being spent gearing up for this weekend's bring a book brunch (thanks again for the brilliant idea), so that makes it all okay :-)

[Barbara]

Lisa - Great idea!

Jenny R. - Let me know how it goes this weekend. I have about sixty women coming on Saturday. Love to think that you're doing the same thing on the other end of the country -

[Elizabeth]

I've been what I call a culture vulture of late, going to readings of several writers that I love. So far, I've heard John Updike, Toni Morrison and Mark Doty. I find it inspirational instead of demoralizing (although I do wonder sometimes, why bother?). Anyway, I'm always encouraged by their stories and understand that ALL writers, not just the lowly ones like myself, are WORKERS. That's what keeps me going.

[Renee]

It's hard to fit writing time into any day, let alone the holiday rush and crush. I journal every morning just to keep the word canal from backing up. I try to do 2 hours every night after dinner, but doens't always happen. Family and time wait for no writer. I credit my writers' group with keeping me inspired and writing so I'll have something to read to them. It's a monthly shot in my writer's arm

[Barbara]

Elizabeth- I'm so impressed with your culture hunger - And I agree - it can be so inspiring to hear the struggles of writers we admire.

Renee - And you're inspiring readers of this blog to form their own writers' groups. If not a group, then maybe just one writing buddy? It's all about accountability.

[Sandra Hamlett]

There's no time like the present. I have three kids (13, 9, and 2) and unless I carve out small chunks here and there I'd never get anything done. Sometimes it feels like I'll never finish my novel but then I look at how much I've written so far and I cut myself some slack. It will happen. It just might not be as fast as I'd like but hey, this isn't a race is it? I love your blog. It always reminds me to find time for writing. Thanks.

[Barbara]

Sandra - Thanks for your comment. And you're right - it's not a race!