photo by Fyfe Photography
Balancing Home Life with your Writing Career
by Barbara Mack
by Barbara Mack
I’ve been a freelance writer for a long time, and up until
the last couple of years it wasn’t a problem. I had older children, and they
understood that their mother was prone to muttering to herself and writing
frantically on scraps of paper at dinner. They didn’t care if I woke up at 3:00 a.m.
and started banging away on the keyboard; they slept through it. As long as I
was up at breakfast time (however groggy and incoherent I might be), it was all
good.
Then I remarried.
Suddenly it wasn’t acceptable to sink into deep thought and
not speak (except to myself) for hours at a time. Plotting my character arc at
dinner was perceived as rude. I couldn’t ignore the dirty dishes piled in the
sink. (Well, I could, but then felt incredibly guilty when my new husband did the
dishes while I wrote.)
Also, there was the common problem that work-at-home people
face – You’re home, so you must be able to take care of this (insert any word
here) for me. It ate into my writing time, and it caused me stress. Stress
makes my writing suffer.
It got to the point where I was having trouble writing
anything at all.
I loved my new husband, and I loved my writing. I had to
find a way to balance my life. I set a schedule, and tried to stick to it. I
wrote in the mornings, took a break for lunch, and then resumed until he came
home from work. I tried to make it clear
that, though I worked at home, it is still work and it needs to be attended to.
An occasional break from that is okay, but anything other than occasional cuts
into my writing time and is unacceptable.
For the most part, it works. I’m always going to be a person
who thinks about writing a lot, and sometimes I’m going to be working on
something in my head when I should be concentrating on other things. My husband
forgives the dirty clothing piled up in the hamper, and I forgive his
occasional forays into ‘You have plenty of time’ world. We try to meet each
others' needs while still meeting our own, and that makes it work for the most
part.
Though I will admit to sometimes writing at 3:00 a.m. when I have
insomnia and my fingers itch to type.
About the author:
Barbara Mack has been fascinated by words and writing since early childhood. the first story she put into print format was about the birds who came to nest in the gardening shed; it reviewed well with critics (the neighbors, her mother and father, grandparents, etc.) She then had a poem - Love Never Dies - published in an international magazine at age 11, and she's never looked back. A prolific author, with books under her name (and her YA pen name Barbara Rose) including cookbooks, historical romance and YA, she's currently a finalist in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Awards. Please feel free to read and rate her novel excerpt.
As with all of the other guest posts, there is a prize to be won with this post too. The prize to be won is "Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers" by Mary Kole. If you are already a signed up member of the Chapter Book Challenge, all you need to do to enter to win the prize is to leave a comment on this post by noon GMT on the 31st of March.
I know that many of you already have this book, so if you win this book and already have it, you may choose to have it sent to someone else in the challenge as a gift or you may choose one of the two items below from the Chapter Book Challenge 2013 shop as an alternative prize.
Great post. I know that right now it's hard to say no - one reason I have a cleaner!
ReplyDeleteLove that post. My husband is pretty understanding, but then he knows that he is just as much responsible for household jobs as me. That said, I could probably do with trying to follow some kind of schedule.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great post! It's so hard to juggle work, home/mom-ness, and writing! I end up writing at night, and no longer remember what sleep is. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, I feel the same way sometimes. My kids are still young and the guilt, yep, the guilt. My littlest calls it "mom's work." Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteOh, I feel the same way sometimes. My kids are still young and the guilt, yeah, the guilt. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteInspiring post on parsing our lives and really getting it done. Congrats on being an ABNA finalist! (if I had an e-reader, I'd read and vote)
ReplyDeleteInspiring post on parsing our lives. Congrats on being an ABNA finalist! (If I had an e-reader, I'd read and rate)
ReplyDeleteGood post and good giveaway! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJill
andrewsjill3@gmail.com
Great post! I sometimes stay up until 2 or 2:30 writing before going to bed.
ReplyDeleteI remember having a long talk about: if this were a half-time job how would we share the housework,kid-time, etc? After working that out, I calculated the number of actual hours I spent doing my "second half-time job" as a mom/house-manager. Then looked up what each job would cost if I hired it out. Came up with a "salary" and negotiated for benefits: time off, sick days, stock options and a 401-K (actually was chunk of money invested in an IRA and stock for my "retirement").
ReplyDeleteSomehow that made my writing job - even when I mostly hauled in rejections - "real" work.
I knew i was single for a reason
ReplyDeleteOh i understand this soooooo well. congrats on being a finalist too.
ReplyDeleteI loved this post - it's good to know that others have the same battle with 'tidy or write' on a daily battle as I do. Thanks for sharing with us Barbara.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Barbara, for being honest with your struggles. We do need to be careful that we don't ignore our families. Sounds like you have found a perfect solution. I'm getting there!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, it's all about balance. Something we all need to find!!!
ReplyDeleteAnother great post. I've been really working on scheduling my time and trying to get more done. Remembering to look at my writing as a real job helped. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. I came to terms with making friends with dust bunnies and cobwebs a long time ago. It wasn't so much with my family that I had trouble with, it was with friends who called or popped in without warning. It was really hard for them to grasp that I was working.
ReplyDeleteOh, this sounds soooo familiar, I also find things eating into my writing time, its so frustrating... I still haven't really found the balance, but working on it!
ReplyDeleteI love hearing how people balance work life and writing life! I just had to write up my work and extra curricular activities schedule for my agent so she'd know when to call me, and I realized, I"M REALLY BUSY!
ReplyDeleteWriting it down made me realize it a lot more.
Does anyone else feel that writing solves LOTS of problems?
Thanks for the great post!