Instant gratification via the blog quickly becomes a drug of sorts.
Choice A: Work on new novel, which may take 184 months to ever see the light of day.
Choice B: Dash off a blog entry which can be published…now!
This would be easier if I had more hours in the day to write. Here is my so-called writing schedule:
7:04 am: Wake to the snuffling movements and thrashing vagaries of Second Son, who has crept into our bed. He often mutters to himself and tells knock-knock jokes in loud whispers, making sleep impossible. He also makes noises out of his anal aperture. Oh, Second Son! One day you will be great!
7:30 Breakfast for three sons. Sometimes involves a great deal of buttering of flat, inanimate objects.
"Moah miwk pwease!" Jellies are spread. Many jellies wind up on the face and lap of Third Son, who announces: "Clean my hands and face and I am all done!"
8:15 Sons off to school. Involves much gesturing and stern talk and not much any writing.
8:32 Train to NYC (or, if working from home, to the email!) Sometimes can get writing done in small, wavering notebook on lap. Eye on fellow passenger who may or may not be about to slump into me with gaping, drooling maw.
Lunchtime: Gym class (when possible). At best, dreaming up plots and ideas while on bike, elliptical trainer, or during kickboxing class. No notebook available to jot down ideas. Great angst that they will be forgotten.
5:30-7:30 Boys' dinner, games, books, bed. Told to fold more paper cranes for Japan by Second Son. Pulled into "secret discussion" with First Son in which he tells me (sotto voce): "Did you know that there are three books in Pullmans' His Dark Materials series?! Can you imagine how cool that is?" Yeah, I suppose I can! Third Son (age 2 and 3/4) wants me to dance to Salt 'n' Pepa circa 1993, which he has yanked off the CD shelf: "If I/ wanna take a guy/ home with me tonight/ it's none a ya bidness!" Um....
7:30 Time to write! Briefly distracted by large, brimming martini set down next to laptop. Thank you, Husband!
9:00 It’s all over, baby. I need to eat dinner.
10:00 Sometimes a resurgence and a slew of writing until late-late, which will usually lead to grogginess and angst when 7:04 item (above) repeats itself, as it invariably will.
When the hey do you all write, anyway? I am curious to know!
So anyway, here's a neat Charlie Rose video with Stanley Fish and Roger Rosenblatt about writing, which I watched tonight while eating dinner. Watch it! It's inspiring. I am dreadful tired. Beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence....
8 comments:
Hey Jenny - I was never able to get much writing done when I had a kid a home, but now... I still work, I still have nighttime activities, but I do sometimes get in an hour in the morning and an hour or so at night. Rough now though, it's busy busy time at work, and I do need to do social things with friends and family from time to time.
I'm writing right now. On your blog and mine. Sleep tight dear friend. Sounds like you have another busy day tomorrow. :)
Wow, your life is so much more busy than my own. I'm impressed you get any writing done at all with that schedule.
I'm currently doing the stay at home mom thing. So I brainstorm though breakfast, write through nap time. Then edit and write in small snatches when my daughter is occupied.
It's hard to write outside while monitoring a sandbox, but I have a laptop and manage.
First of all, I think I'd get a lot more writing done if I just stayed off the damn internet! lol!
Seriously though, this is bad- I'm home all day, the kids are at school, and I still only manage about an hour of actual writing done during the day (unfortunately, they've yet to invent self-cleaning house ;). I do more writing after the kids go to bed at 9:00, and write till about 10:30 or so.
Hey, I see the "captcha" word *ovelate* below..Ovelate? Is that a word? I want there to be a "u": *ovulate*. Are your Blog Gods sending me a message that they know who I am? I'm the woman who always *ovelated* and never *ovulated*? I'm the one. If I comment next time and the "captcha" word is *fatty* or *chins* or *hirsute*, I will know for sure that something, something is up. So you see what keeps me from writing more regularly are distractions like these. Your blog rocks, PartyPony! :o) Liz
p.s. the next Captcha word is "Bernice". I knew it. I knew your Blog God would have a name like Bernice.
Hey! How do I get an appointment with this doctor? I LIKE Xanax!
Sorry forgot to leave my name on last comment re: wonderful pill pushing doc
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