Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

Well, here we are. After surviving the vacation from hell and the never-ending four-day weekend, I finally find myself back at my computer struggling to get back to work. Just one problem. Once again, Samantha has switched up her schedule on me.

Long before I had kids, another writer I know told me that it was impossible to writer with small children at home. He told me the tale of how he quit work when his daughter was born and didn't write a thing until the day she headed off to kindergarten. Being the write-at-home-mother of two wee ones under the age of five, I have to disagree with my friend. It's not impossible to write with small children at home, just damned difficult.

The problem of writing with children in the house is that taking care of kids is a full-time job plus some. As a parent, I am on call every minute of the day. Oh, and night. Let's not forget the night, because even if I refuse to give up writing, I did have to give up sleep for a while with my kids.

Little ones set the pace in a home. You have to work to their schedule. Things like naptime and bedtime may be predictable for a few weeks, but then something happens and it all goes out the window. Say an infant nurses twelve times a day. That means you will be nursing twelve times a day (seriously, I did this), so when are you going to write? Or the baby cuts a new tooth, a painful procedure that keeps both of you up all night screaming. How do you plan to write the next day when you can barely crawl out of bed? And what will you do when she drops her morning nap, better known as the only two hours of writing time you get during the day? It's just a fact of life. Write-at-home-parents live their writing lives around their kids' schedules. Again, not impossible, just damned hard. But the good news is it really isn’t impossible. It just requires some ingenuity, or what I call "Adjust and Adapt."

When Sam switches up her schedule for some reason, it throws me for a couple days, but I know from dealing with her older sister that change is always inevitable, and I can change just as quickly as Sam can. Here's what I do to fix the problem.

Get up early. The earlier I start my day, the better. I currently get up at 4:45 AM. Yeah, it's still dark out and I'm pretty groggy, but I've learned the hard way that if I don't get up until 6:30 with the rest of the family, I lose out on time to myself. I've learned the hard way that it's worth sacrificing two hours of sleep to be able to handle a few necessary chores that I can't do once Sam wakes up. And it frees up time later in the day for things I can do when she's awake. Speaking of which...

Know what you can do when. There are certain things I can do when Sam is awake and certain things I can only do when she's asleep. I can't do anything in the office above the garage while Sam is up because the office is not child-proofed. Nor can I do any writing that requires all my concentration. However, I can blog while she's running around (like I'm doing right now) and I can handle e-mail, website updates, and graphics work. But only if I can get to my computer, which leads me to point number three...

Location, location, location. I haven't been able to do certain tasks these days because they require me to be up in the office, which as I mentioned is not child-proof. I could get up there when Sam's asleep, but that's my writing time and I try to save that for writing and nothing else. To combat the problem, I'm setting up a new office, downstairs where everything is safe for Sam. Currently, the office consists of me bringing down my laptop first thing in the morning and working at the dining room table. Eventually, I will be putting a desk and some bookshelves in the foyer of our house, along with my desktop computer. Then I'll have a laptop up in the bedroom where I can work while Sam nurses, and the office downstairs where I can work while she plays.

Be prepared to work around setbacks. Sam spent four nights in a row screaming this week. And she screamed all night. It just about killed me to be up with her until 3AM and then try to get up again at 4:45AM. Needless to say, I didn't. When I did get up, the day was all screwed up. Still, I did manage to get a few things done. Though I didn't do any writing, I did handle e-mail and prep a story for submission. Not my first choice of work, but they were things that needed doing, and having done some work kept me from feeling bad about not writing all week.

Final thought, make it easy on yourself. Having two computers makes all the difference for me, or it will once I have the new office set up. Even better, having the same files and programs on both computers will be a dream come true. If you have the luxury of using two computers, one portable and one in a fixed office, then make sure to keep them synched up, and backed up too. If you only have one computer, make sure you can get to it easily (but also make sure the baby can't!). Keep your computer in good working order, and your office space too, so it will be easy for you to sit down at the computer and write.

Well, Sam just bonked her head and it's time to fix lunch anyway. I'll sign off here. I'll start posting pictures of the office as we start working on it. For a while, it's just going to be my laptop at the dining room table, but eventually, it's going to be heaven on earth.

And then Sam will switch up her schedule again and we'll all go to hell in a handbasket.

Labels: Write-At-Home Mom, Writing tips

Friday, September 7, 2007

Adjust And Adapt, Or Writing With Children At Home