In a dream world, I think many of us would wake, take care of our morning routine (workout, shower, kids and spouse on their merry little way) and spend the day chasing our dreams as a writer.
My dream world would allow me to spend the first few hours of the day jumping around to people’s blogs, laughing and supporting the amazing people in the writing community, having a lovely non-rushed lunch, get a fresh Diet Coke, and write until the kids came home.
Beautiful dream, right?
But our dreams and our reality don’t always align. My current job has me at work by 7:30 am, about 30 minutes for lunch, ends at about 3:30 pm, kids, dinner, practice (both me and my kids all on piano, one child with the violin too), help with homework, reading, bathing and try to spend a little time with my spouse and fit in writing before I collapse.
This has sent me into a bit of the grass is greener syndrome, which I wrote about here. In fact, I have job envy. I share this blog with university professors, which is where I kind of wanted to end up, but life threw in enough bumps that it didn’t happen. Yet.
I want to have the life of a writer, doing book tours, hosting online conferences and author interviews and bloghops and immerse myself completely in the writing community. Again, life and whatnot and that hasn’t happened. Yet.
And I have two really great ideas for books I want to write after I get this one finished. I want to see my name on the front of a novel and have it show up on goodreads and amazon, but I have to finish the one I’m on and that hasn’t happened. Yet.
My very wise father, when I was sharing a few of these thoughts with him, reminded me that I’m 33. My youngest child is 6. Which means in 12 years, when all my kids have graduated high school, I will be 45. Imagine the possibilities that still exist. I just can’t have them all. Yet.
I’ve never really been known as a patient person, but writing, kids, marriage… you get get idea has taught me that I can’t have everything right now. But I can have it. See, while I make lack LOTS of patience in many situations, that is balanced out with what I have – a pretty determined work ethic. I think most writers do. And we see the dreams, goals, ambitions and can get frustrated that it hasn’t happened. Yet.
But who’s to say that they can’t happen?
What are the goals and dreams that you are striving for? What do you do to keep these in front of you? What techniques have you found to keep moving in the direction of your dreams?
Thinking Through Our Fingers 
Oy. This being a mother and a writer thing is hard, eh?
I think it's all about balance and one big decision…..who do you want to be? I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I spend loads of time doing crafts. Or in the past I tried my hand at an Etsy shop. But…I realized that at the end of my life, when I looked back on all I did….that was not something I'd be happy I accomplished.
So, I think about that….what will I be happy I accomplished? Taking good care of my kids? Yep. Building fun and wonderful memories. Uh-huh. And somehow managing to write the kind of books I want to read? Yes.
Now if I could just get my girls to take a four hour nap….this would become much easier….
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Hey, if you think I have more time because I'm a professor, you are sadly mistaken. I was sadly disillusioned about that myself.
What I wish is that I had the confidence to write (like I do- most days- now), when I was a full-time mom. It's not like FT moms don't have a full plate, but let's face it… those of us who work (especially those of us who are single parents), are FT workers and still FT moms! It's a miracle any of us get any writing done at all.
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Tasha, your dad is great. I love that advice. There are too many things that I love doing and that are so important to me. I feel like what I really need is a 26-hour day. You and I will work on patience together. 🙂
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Totally with you on this one. Too many fun (and some not-so-fun) things to do and not enough time! Consistency, I suppose, is the key to achieving dreams. (And a LARGE sum of patience!) Thanks for the follow! I look forward to following this blog!
Lo
lojwriting.blogspot.com
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