Here's my dilemma. I want to write. I've always been told I'd good at it. I've taken some courses along the way. I'd like to try to develop my skills and give it a try.
On the other hand. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I feel that my family and home should be my first priority. This makes it extremely easy at any given time to find fifty different things that I could/should be doing instead of working at my computer. I do try to sit and write, but I feel that since I'm not a "professional writer" bringing in some income that in others' eyes I'm just blowing off time at the keyboard (I have a paranoia that when my kids are older they will have this image of me as simply being some sort of computer/internet addict and that they won't understand what I really was/am trying to do). That's where the guilt enters and I find myself pushing away from the desk and tackling another task.
I know I should designate a certain time of the day as my time and use this only to focus on my writing. Unfortunately, 9 - 11 pm is not what I would consider my optimal work time. I'm either too tired or run the risk of getting on a roll and staying up way past my bed time (a bad habit to get into when my oldest gets up between 6:30 & 7:00 each morning).
I had hoped that I could write during the hours that my youngest is at nursery school, but I find myself filling that time with other things ... working out, running errands, appointments ... things that are also much easier to tackle when I'm flying solo.
sigh ... feeling crappy about my aspirations today
1 year ago
3 comments:
Yup. The old 'finding-time-to-write' dilemma. Killer, ain't it?
Seriously, I think the first thing you need to do is come to a concrete decision about how important your writing is to you. Then you'll know what kinds of sacrifices will be appropriate.
For example: say you just want to write for fun, maybe get a short story or an article published so you can see your name in print. That'd be really neat-o, right? To write at this level, you probably wouldn't need to do any more than you're doing now.
Say you want to devote the whole rest of your life to becoming a world class author with movie deals and a legacy and the whole enchalada. To accomplish this, you'd need to send your kids off to be raised by some distant cousin, then cut all ties with the rest of humanity so you can lock yourself in a closet and write twenty hours a day, every day, for the next two to ten years.
And maybe you're like me, and you'd be happy getting a book or two published, and, maybe, one day earning enough to write full time. Personally, I'm finding that aspiring even to this level takes much bigger sacrifices than I ever predicted.
Anyway. It's all about goals. And how much you're willing to sacrifice to attain these goals. Really only you (and your spouse) can make this decision.
I'm hoping for the middle of the road option. The "plan" is to freelance, writing articles (and maybe earning a little $$ along the way - though I'm well aware this is not very lucrative!). Eventually when my kids are older I would focus more on writing books.
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