With the changing of the season and the start of a new month, I’m feeling the need to get back to work. The idea for my next book (another NA contemporary romance) has been floating around in the back of my mind for months, the story filling in here and there, the characters showing their personalities and endearing quirks, little snippets of conversations playing in my head. Yup, I’m starting to hear voices. ;-) Which means it’s time to get writing.
This also means it’s time, once again, to figure out how to balance my writing with my life. Not an easy feat for me, and one that I haven’t been particularly successful at in the past, if I’m going to be completely honest. Problem is, once I get sucked into a book, my mind gets tunnel vision and it’s all I ever think about. All day long. Every day. Which makes me not the best mom during those times.
I’ve gotten better with each book. (At least, I think I have. I HOPE I have.) But it’s still a struggle. It’s still a juggling act I’m trying to figure out how to do, even as I drop ball after ball. But I stubbornly keep at it because writing is important to me. It feeds my creative soul, sates my thirst to Make.
And complicates the hell out of my life, challenging me to find balance. But this IS life, right? Seeking balance, tipping one way and then the other as you figure things out for yourself, as you find what works for YOU because it’s never exactly the same as what works for someone else. Losing your balance, correcting (sometimes over-correcting), and getting it back. Even if only for a short while.
It’s a balancing act.
I agree, life is a balancing act. I am still trying to balance reading, blogging and reviewing with everything else I have to do. Some days, some weeks, are better than others. I think it will always be a constant battle for me.
I hope you are able to get everything balanced as best you can! Just remember none of us are perfect but if we are doing our best, that is all anyone can really ask of us.
So true, Ali. Wise words. <3
It’s also about what works for your kids, since all of those little people have different needs. So how you’re doing for you, and as a mom, are both pretty subjective. I talk to a lot of parents who judge how they do as parents based on an idea in their own head of what they should be, instead of how they’re actually doing for their kids. I would suspect, from what I’ve read about the way you’re raising your children with self directed learning in mind, that it’s probably good for them to see that you get so into something; that you’re a passionate person who MAKES and all that. So, I bet you’re doing better on the balancing act than you often think you are, is what I’m saying.
The hardest thing for me, with the balancing act, is being aware of how it is I’m doing. How much time am I spending doing this or that… and not letting my feelings about how I’m doing get in the way. If it suddenly occurs to me to evaluate, but I don’t have any facts to back it up, I generally awesome I’m doing awful. Things are usually fine.
Good luck with the voices :)