Mom - Author

My house is cozy. The Christmas tree is lit, the stockings are hung, and we even have the fireplace on (it's cold and snowy outside, and this is the only time of year I feel like the fireplace is worth it). And I would so love to sit down and write the next chapter of my current WIP. But.... the kitchen is a mess from the aftermath of supper, and I am exhausted by a long day of homeschooling and being a full-time mom.So... in this busy season of life (and busy season of the year) how does one juggle being a mom AND an author? (Or a mom and anything else, really)?I have no idea.Seriously, if someone else has a good idea or a method that works for them, I'd love to hear it.With the impending release of my 4th book, wrapping up a series, and the excursion out into a whole new series and several other ideas... I feel like my writing career is amping up at exactly the wrong time. I'm finally making sales and having "real" author opportunities just as I suddenly have two children to homeschool at the same time and a toddler and soon we're adding another infant into the mix. And we'd like to build a house in there somewhere. I never claimed sanity, friends. There are many days when I feel like throwing in the towel. Hanging up my typing-keys until I'm an empty-nester. But the stories won't wait that long, they clamor to be told, to be written down, to be edited and polished and perfected and then released into the wild like rehabilitated wolves. (Um, is that even a thing?)So take this post with that enormous block of salt, because I am not at all claiming to be one who has this all figured out, by any stretch of the imagination. But it is something I want to get better at, and in spite of all my failings and feelings of inadequacy, I do somehow manage to keep scratching away at this dream of mine. So, here are a few of my own discoverings on how to balance this writing journey and ... well ... life in general. In no particular order.Get off the internet"But Jenelle!" you cry. "I am a self-published author attempting to market my words to a vast and deserving audience who will never find out about me or my books if I don't get out there and interact with my readers!"I know. I'm right there with you. But more important than your social media platform are your actual books! And if you have to choose between time spent interacting with readers and time working on that next story, I recommend choosing the latter. Your fans will thank you. Besides, if you make writing/editing your priority, you might be surprised to find that you do, in fact, have some leftover time each day to spend online. But I guarantee that if you make facebook and twitter your priority, you will not have time left over for writing. I speak from experience.Recharge your creative juices (or Don't Get Burned Out)How can I get burned out if I don't ever get a chance to write at all? You might be asking. Well, that's a different problem. But when you have little ones tugging on your shirt all day demanding attention, sometimes you get them off to bed and realize that you're too brain-dead and burned out to write anything. And that's okay. Don't feel guilty about sitting down and reading a book for fun or watching an episode of something. Writers need to take IN stories as much as we want to put them OUT. If you're not getting that opportunity, you will be drawing from a very dry well, indeed.Take time to restGoing hand in hand with my last point (and a bit with my next point). Don't neglect your rest. It's fine if you want to have a crazy month of November trying to do Nanowrimo, but please understand that such a pace is not sustainable, nor is it healthy. You'll end up getting overwhelmed and suddenly find yourself not only trying to juggle life and writing, but you've got your country's 500th anniversary to plan, your wedding to arrange, your wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it... so, in the wise words of Count Rugen.... "Get your rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."It's a marathon.... with moments of sprintingBoth parenting and authing (authing is so a word here on my site, so there) are long-haul commitments. Both of them will involve a certain amount of frenzied sprinting at times... but for the most part, try to remember that these are distance-races you've enrolled yourself in. The bursts of writing, the sales, the successful ad campaigns, the rave reviews, the daily joys of watching your children learn something new or seeing the lightbulb flash in their eyes as they suddenly comprehend something you've been trying to teach them for days... months... years? is worth it, it's gratifying, it can feel like you're suddenly an "overnight success" but it's the work you put in before those moments... the work you put in after those moments... that is what really matters. So, pace yourself.Don't set impossible goalsBelieve me: setting goals is good. I have nothing against setting goals. I do it all the time. It's wonderful to have something to strive for. But sometimes those goals can get overwhelming. You miss one day's goal and suddenly the rest of the week turns into this nightmarish thing ready to chew you up and spit you back out if you don't make up those lost words.Do set goalsI realize this may seem a little contradictory if you think about it too hard, but goals and deadlines are important. They help you keep striving toward attainable milestones. Much like a marathon runner who keeps in mind only the next step, the next quarter mile, the next mile... you do need to set yourself reasonable goals. If you don't, it will become far too easy to start getting overwhelmed as you look at that ultimate "finish line" way off in the distance of fairy-tale land. Small goals on your way to that ultimate finish line keep you grounded and help you feel that you are actually achieving some semblance of progress.Don't compare yourself to other authorsThis is probably one of the hardest ones for me. I am in some wonderful writing groups with authors who are supportive and helpful and kind. But every now and then I see one of their posts about releasing their thirtieth (yes, I said THIRTIETH and I'm not exaggerating) book, or getting accepted for their 12th Bookbub promotion and it's enough to make a person want to curl up in their closet and weep for a month. But of course you can't do that, because you have small people who will starve or become buried under their own piles of dirty laundry if you succumb to such a fit of self-pity. But you're severely tempted to do so, because you know that author and they are the same age as you and have children, too, and you feel like an instant failure... well, friends, that's not going to help you as you plug away on your sixth manuscript... and there's always going to be someone out there who is envying you being on your 6th ms while they toil away at their first. Your pace is YOUR pace. You can't be any other author and nobody else can tell your stories.Let it go...Yes, in Elsa's voice. Each day, you are probably going to have to choose to let something slide. Maybe not every day, there will be days when you get it ALL done and feel like a superhero, but that will probably not be the norm. Many times, it will be the tidiness of your home. Other days, it will be writing. Sometimes it will be more important things and your children will subsist on chocolate milk and sliced cheese and apples... hopefully not too terribly often (not that they'll mind, of course - those are all things they LIKE!) But for me, each day, there is something I consciously have to tell myself to "let it go."Don't squander the time you do getIf you have a minute to write, take it. Be grateful for it. This is one I'm not good at, but I'm trying to be better about it. Trying to learn to roll out my creativity whenever I have a moment. Whether it's grabbing a few minutes to write during the daily quiet time hours, or taking time in the evenings after the kids are in bed to pound out another chapter or scene, or jotting down notes in a notebook in my purse at a moment's notice while waiting in a doctor or dentist's office, a layover in an airport... I am slowly learning that this is a time in my life where I don't get and can't have enormous blocks of time to write. So I need to learn to treasure up the moments I do have and get a few more steps into my writing journey whenever those moments are available (instead of going on facebook and scrolling through all the posts I've already read today).Enjoy the life you haveIf you are like me, and your primary focus is being a mom of small children while trying to carve out time to follow your writing aspirations... then will you join me and just enjoy this time? Take the time you get to write and receive it as a blessing, but know deep in your soul that your children are by far, as C.S. Lewis is famous for saying, "Your most important work." It is easy to lose sight of that when you're racing toward a deadline or a book signing or a marketing opportunity... but that does not make it any less true. And there is nothing like raising children to help you hear more voices in your head than just your own (not in a "I'm going crazy" sort of way, but in a helpful, making your characters sound more real sort of way). Nothing like that experience to help you appreciate the next generation... who will hopefully read and love your books someday. Because that's what I want my focus to be. I want my kids to know they come before my stories, before my characters. I'd love for them to love my books... but I'd so much rather my children know that I love them.What about you, dear Reader, dear Fellow Writer? I know we are all busy, especially this time of year. What are some tips and tricks you've hit upon that help you feel like you're balancing it all? I'd love to hear about them!And speaking of dreams and that whole writing career thing... don't forget to enter for your chance to win our Ultimate Stormcave Prize Bundle! Easy to enter (and there are some slightly more entertaining options in there, too, which I'm not sure anyone has actually tried yet, but are worth FIVE entries if you do!)