Tiiiiiiiiiiiiime Is Not On My Side, No It Isn’t!

 

 

Very few of us have the luxury of writing full time. We have jobs, school, kids (or at least I’m assuming some of you do), and general obligations that make finding time to write difficult if not a pain in the ass. Yet we’re here and we aspire to be that person who no longer works the nine to five or graveyard shift to pay the bills. I hope to one day be that person I also hope to finish my degree so I can set down the textbooks for a while. My goal is to not have to get out of my pajamas to work. I probably will get out of my pajamas but I want the option.

The past week with school back in session I find that I’m very stressed out trying to figure out when I can get it all done. I will admit I am not the best time manager and need to find a way to change my habits. I bought a day planner to try and organize but it is difficult as homework and my job as a server leave me with an erratic schedule at best. Then again many others have had the same if not worse schedules and have gone on to be best-selling authors; so please go ahead and have some cheese to go with my whine (I myself am a fan of goat cheese and gorgonzola.)

Since the stress has led to insomnia I have decided to ostrich a bit and pretend that writing a novel is easy and that the publishing world is all rainbows and ponies, at least for one more night before reality must again rear its evil head. To help me do this and so that you may join me on this magical journey I have for you the lovely and talented Jackson Pearce’s video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ_-TOJhXXk

I hope you all enjoyed that, and do take her advice and watch it while listening to “Do You Believe In Magic.”

School, Reading, and Chalk Boards

Well school has started for me and I must admit this being my last year I have a case of senioritis (is this over yet?). In order to get this over with this year I have jam packed schedule full of fun literary classes. I don’t know about you guys but no matter how fun the material I tend to hate reading assigned texts. I think it has something to do with being forced to read it. Yes, yes, I know that it is within my rights to not read said texts but that would make tests and papers a bit difficult.

For me there is something about requirement that makes the reading much harder. This is coming from someone who can read for hours on end. I will admit that once said novels are read I feel quite accomplished. I get that whole “lookee here ma! I iz a literary genius!” I see value in what I am reading even if I don’t like it because it helps me as a writer. Still I dream of the day that the semester is over so that I may again browse Amazon to enjoy non-school texts.

In the meantime I have the same professor for two classes who keeps telling us that we should train ourselves to look at the class material as interesting as it is obscure and will seem boring (wonderful! You’ve already warned me that I will want to hit my head against the wall repeatedly while trying to finish your readings).  Another professor who is overly aggressive with chalk, yep that’s right I am in a classroom that still has a chalk board. The other classes are online so thankfully there will be no screeching chalk. Fingers crossed everyone that this semester is relatively pain free.

Back to School…

Ah yes! The smell of new backpacks and crisp notebooks fill the air, while the sighs of the tortured youngsters forced to trod the linoleum halls of learning create its own breeze to ruffle newly shorn hair.  Yes, it is that time again. That time when parents try hard to restrain their mad grins of relief while breaking out into random happy dances.  School’s in and my Prankster Duo is not amused.  I, however, am.

Let’s face it, as much as I love having my two little troublemakers home, by the time the school opens, I’ve got them, packed, pressed and pushed out the door to the bus stop.  The sound of the bell marks the beginning of my ability to reclaim an actual routine. Which for my little OCD heart is almost (I said-almost) as good as a chocolate.  While my darlings are busy learning new concepts, I somehow manage to juggle the job-that-pays-the-bills and my writing much more effectively.  Perhaps it’s the fact I don’t have to stop for feeding time, referee the hotly debated questions of computer usage/Nerf ownership, or find myself scheduling appointments that I’ve put off all year because it may interfere with class schedules.  Whatever it is, the start of their school marks the start of my more effective use of time.

My oldest started his journey into Junior High last week.  We had prepared, as many do, for this adventure.  We’ve discussed choosing your associates wisely, maintaining your shield and swords, and the importance of completing any mission given you.  So far, so good. He’s proven he actually heard all those bits and pieces the Knight and I have given him, even if it didn’t seem like he was listening.  It’s strangely wonderous.

The youngest is off on his adventure this week.  Unlike his older counterpart, he’s quite excited to be rejoining old friends.  Not like Mr. Social Butterfly hasn’t been out of touch during these summer months (I wonder if there is a Skype addiction program out there?).  Yet as this is the first year in a while where my Duo will be split, I think their excited about taking their own paths, knowing, if  they need the other, all they have to do is ask. 

So although I spent the first week of the oldest one’s entry into middle school world choking back my worries and concerns, I’m finding I’m relaxing bit by bit as he begins his journey and discovers how strong he really can be and unknowingly setting a very awesome example for his brother.  As my youngest begins his trip, I take comfort in the fact that his witty humor and inquisitive mind will keep his teachers on his toes, instead of just me!

Case of the missing Snark…

At the latest gathering of the Evil 7 it came to our attention that our bold whipmistress and supreme ass kicker Snarky Dwarf has suddenly *gasp* lost her snark.  The Swamp is in an uproar.  I’m not sure how we missed such a momentous disaster, but trying to retrieve that mangy feather fiend, Mischeivous from the Three Misfiteers, resisting the urge to show that pompous C. Rock Adile how lovely he’d look in boot form, and making sure to keep those damn Storm Troopers from finding Jedi Dwarf, we seemed to have lost her snark.

Although we’ve bid adieu to Jedi, we have been able to help Dreamer Dwarf get settled. I’ve managed to wrangle the Prankster Duo into keeping Eerie’s zombies occupied so Dreamer doesn’t catch on that the shuffling noises she’s been hearing aren’t the three lost pigs from the other side of the Swamp.  We all pitched in with her beautiful moat and boy is C. Rock going to be pissed when he finds out we bribed his cousins into taking up residence.  I think if we corner a few unicorns for Dreamer, she’ll be okay.  As long as we keep the zombies, the Prankster Duo, the hellhound, Eerie and the Swamp Thing away from her yard.  Maybe her white picket fence and beautifully boxed flower things will keep everyone back.  If not, that’s why we have the moat!

I was going to make my Muse and that drunken fool she’s been hanging out with over at Swamp Shack help me earlier this month, but she’s taken a beating from all the guest posts I had to throw together.  Who knew that trying to come with entertaining blog posts was almost as hard as…writing? Not me, that’s for sure.  However, I’m sure she’s back in fighting form so I sent Mischevious over to Eerie’s so we can figure out what happened to Snarky’s snark.  Between the two of us I’m sure we’ll hunt it down.

Since my Muse was able to help me carve out a good 12 pages today, I figured we’d stick with what works do a little revamping of the Swamp.  Maybe it’s the massive amount of HGTV (Hag and Gnome channel) I’ve been forced to watch late at night while the hellhound has been chasing the Zombies and Knight in slightly muddy armor has been out “raiding” with his friends until the wee hours, but it was time for a change.  Cool uh?

My To-Do list is growing:

1.  Round up Eerie and the Muses and find Snarky’s snark

2.  Do weekly rounds of guest posts at following sites (and it’s a busy week):

• 4/17   Michelle Miles’s Ye Olde Inkwell where I keep with my HGTV motif and discuss A Writer’s Dream
• 4/19  Stacey Donaldson is hosting me at The Write to Make A Living as we take a peek into the Chaotic World fo a Writer’s Mind
• 4/20  The lovely Bri Clark graciously rescheduled me over at The Belle of Boise to chat about Plot and Soap Opras
• 4/21  BK Walker has welcomed me to her Immortyl Cafe to explore how to Forge a Character

3.  Help plan the yearly trip to Troll Mountain.  I so can’t wait for this one!

4.  Keep the Prankster Duo focused for their annual Testing Games–only a few make it through with their brains intact.  Here’s hoping we’ve prepared them enough for the onslaught of data!

I think that’s it so far…more than enough to keep me busy.

Until next week…

Wicked

The Vacay is over…

As you noticed, my last post hung around for a whopping two weeks.  Yep, it was deliberate, not a technological malfunction.  I know, I know, normally the tech gremlins are to fault, but this time I just couldn’t hang it on them.  It was all me.  The Prankster Duo escaped from their learning institution and embarked on a week-long pester fest some call “Spring Break”.  Since the knight in slightly muddy armor and I thought we might be pushed to send them out into the Swamp on a Snipe hunting trip (if you don’t know what that is, go ask your parents!), we thought it would be best to pack up and head over to Grandma’s which is over the hill and under dale up north.  North being where white stuff falls from the sky and sticks to the ground in gritty, gray patches.  Luckily, the white stuff was only on the ground and not in the air and where we were enjoying the beautiful sun drenched days of 80 degree weather, we weren’t disappointed with  the 20 degree temperature drop since the sun was out in all its shining glory.

I also decided that maybe, this year, I’d actually make those days off from the job-that-pays-the-bills actual days off.  Shocking, I know, but it’s been a whirlwind the first couple of months this year.  If I didn’t cut myself some slack soon, I might find myself all alone on my own Snipe hunt in the Swamp.

So no blog posts last week, I was MIA from Twitter and barely showed up on Facebook.  And boy howdy, did I realize just how much time all of that took up. The first few days at Grandma’s I had to field a few forest fires from the job-that-pays-the-bills, but it soon died off.  Once we made it back into the Valley of the Sun, and blazed our way home through the Swamp, I was able to conqueror Jack’s nasty beanstalks in my back yard, appease those pesky due collectors, catch-up on entering some fab-u writing contests, make my offering to the cover artist goddesses, and then found out I’m all set for a blog tour in April.  Yep, April which is what? Two weeks away? So after hyperventilating on how soon that was bearing down on me, I needed to make sure I made every minute of my “vacay” worth it.

Once back from Grandma’s I slept in and ignored the hellhound who really didn’t like having his breakfast delayed past dawn.  Tried to make in roads on the leaning tower of to-be-read-a’s books on my night stand while knight was off saving the galaxy from being overtaken by Sith Imperials, or when that got to be too boring, the Reapers who were wreaking a massive hellstorm on Earth.  We even managed to wrangle the Prankster Duo to the Renaissance Festival.  Oh yes, the land of giant turkey legs and over flowing…..bodices of ale!

So now that my vacay is over, it’s back to the keyboard.  Tomorrow Xander, Vidis and I have a meeting…however I’m not so sure how well that will go.  Then I’ll tackle the posts for the upcoming blog tour.  So stay tuned, I’ll have those dates and places up next week!

Until then…don’t get lost on your twisted paths!

Wicked

 

The Greatest Holiday Ever….

Halloween is around the corner and this month zipped by in spectacularly fast fashion.  With little time to spare, I wrangled the Prankster Duo, via a Venus Fly Trap snare, made them leave the head of one of Eerie’s zombies at home, and off we went to shop for costumes.   As we emerged from the Swamp, the youngest pointed out the new signs wallpapering the Impenetrable Forest.  Seems they’re in the midst of working on another deadly…I mean lovely, maze for this year’s celebration.

So we’re at the Aberzombie & Witch when my oldest informs me in funeral tones that this will be his last year of trick-or-treating.

Shocked, all I could manage was a garbled, “Uh?”

Ignoring my eloquence, he continued, “My friends and I discussed this, and this is it for us.”

“You make it sound like your impending demise looms upon the horizon, child. It’s Halloween!”

I never thought I’d get such a look from the fruit of my loins. (Loins, Eerie, not Looms!)  From the Whipmistress?  Hell yeah.  Him? Not so much.  “I don’t want to embarrass myself.”

Really? Okay, Mr. Daddy Long Legs…let’s think about this for a second.  You’re a boy, a sweet one occasionally, but a pre-teen boy.  Embarrassment is soon to be a way of life for you.  My poor baby.

He added, “Besides, we’ll be in Junior High.”

Ahhh! I get it.  As we leave the familiar halls of elementary school behind and begin to prepare for the hallowed journey to middle school, suddenly “coolness” factors into every decision.  Then it’s on to those oh-so-torturous years of high school.

“Okay then.  But you do realize that mom had no problem donning a wig, goth make-up and heeled boots for her writer’s conference a couple years back.  Remember that?”

He does a damn good eye roll, “Yeah, mom, but you’re…a writer, you’re suppose to be crazy.”

See! My son is brilliant! As I glide through the pride of my son’s keen intellect, my youngest cuts in.  “Mom, they don’t have any Minecraft pig costumes.”

Looking over the selection, I notice he’s absolutely correct.  Nary a piece of bacon in sight.  Unless you count the strangely compelling anatomically correct adult version hanging in the corner.  I gently steer his young, impressionable mind elsewhere.  “Okay, then, what’s your back-up plan?”

“Hmmm….” he studies the offerings with the seriousness of a heart surgeon.  A few minutes later and a decision is made.  I head to the counter, lay out the cash and we’re homeward bound.

Later that night as my knight-in-slightly-muddy armor starts to work on his daily shine-fest, the Duo drag out their costumes.

“Look, Dad? Like the whip?”  For a kid who doesn’t want to trick-or-treat, my oldest hides his excitement fairly well.

“Nice, son,” my  knight checks the workmanship.  “So, Indiana Jones, uh?”

“Yeah, no mask required.”

They’re interrupted as my youngest taps my knight on his shoulder.  “Check it out, Dad!”  The voice is a little muffled behind the mask, but it gets a smile from my knight.

“Niccceeee…I see we stuck with our old stand-by, Star Wars!”

“Yeah, no Minecraft pigs.” Disappointment has our ARF Stormtrooper’s shoulder sagging. But only for a moment.  “But it’s okay, this one has wickedly cool camo!”

As the Duo dart off to harangue the hell-hound, my knight turns to me.  “Does he realize the camo is for snow covered landscapes?”

“Yep, but it’s camo and you know as well as I do, any camo is good camo, as far as he’s concerned.”  From outside our well barricaded cabin, we hear another zombie cage-fight match start up.  I sure wish the Swamp Thing would leave them alone. I double check the locks on the door and make sure the flamethrowers are set.  “Besides, does it matter? It’s Halloween, and isn’t one of the best parts being able to dress up however we want?”

–Wicked

School’s around the corner…

Yes, it’s almost that time again.  Soon, oh so soon, the Prankster Duo will gear up and head out to take on their annual battle…SCHOOL!  And I will rejoice! 

No more fending off the most dreaded words of the summer…”I’m bored.”  I’ve tried to fight this one over and over the last few years.  We’ve sent the Duo trekking through the wilderness surrounding the Swamp, stopping at campsites along the way to participate in the hunting of the Lego Monsters, had them swim through the Endless rivers, even sent them to chase round and some what round objects held by other dwarves as they race across fields in the sweltering sun.  Once, we even had them work with some very creative puppeteers and try their hand at creating their own shows, but alas, it never failed that the dreaded wail of  “I’m bored!” would echo through the confines of our homey cabin and resonate through the Swamp. 

What’s a parent to do? You can’t just set them loose with a weed whacker on the greenery of the Swamp, the neighbors tend to get a bit huffy when their garden is suddenly reduced to shrubbery.  Our part of the Swamp has some truly sunny days and sending out smaller beings to “play” results in this horrible red coloring accompanied by headaches and much moaning and groaning about being “too hot”.  You could throw up your hands (many parents do because any other action results in jail time or being bald!) and let them become lobotomized by the Electronic Coven of Witches.  You know this group, they’ve managed to worm their way into every household in one form or fashion.  Sometimes they can actually be helpful, but in the summer their wickedness peaks.   They can mesmerize any one, regardless of age, and suck them into a vaguely realistic world where common terminology like “creepers” and “aether mod” and “zanite”  and “mcedit” become actual words. Then suddenly the whole summer has passed and you realize the mantra of “I’m bored!” has only been heard a few times.  On the downside, you find you suddenly need to invest in prescription glasses as their pupils have suddenly lost the ability to detract.  And the lovely gold color that the previous red fades too? It’s changed to a pasty, pale color which tends to glow with a faint phosphorescent when the lights are out.

This summer we dragged the Prankster Duo of to the Land of Fire, just to make sure we set the right tone for the summer.  When we returned, we let them play with Eerie’s Zombies while he was away, but I have to wonder if that was why Hippie moved away.  It may have something to do with the mess they made of his garden once they discovered how well the weed whacker worked on Zombies and weeds alike.  I’ll admit to some pride in their ability to creatively multi-task.  We even let them invite their friends over to join in the fun as they tried to show off their newly found snorkeling skills in the pond out back.  The leeches made it a sticky situation a couple of times though.  We even sent them out with the hell-hound a few times on pointless quests!  If we hadn’t, the Electronic Coven of Witches would have had them in their snarley grasp and there may not have been much gray matter left for their prospective teachers to work with this year.  Not a good thing, considering the horrors that await if they don’t succeed in school.  They’re going to need every scrap of gray, wrinkled matter to get through another year.

Yet next week will mark the end to my annual battle against boredom and I find myself excited at the prospect of actually being able to get ANYTHING done.  No more interruptions, no more fires to put out, no more leftover Zombie parts to pick out of the hell hound’s fur, and maybe the yard will stand a chance at growing more than a millimeter high. Best of all, their antics will be limited to the short time span of the weekend.  Which means I might be able to do something besides damage control.

Writing? Having a Life?

Writing and having a life? What exactly is that?

See, here’s my deal. I have four kids in age from 13 to 5. After school activities, sports, scouts (3 groups, 2 of which I’m a leader). Oh, and my darling husband. He’d very supportive, otherwise I’d have given up a long time ago.

Then, my jobs: Chauffeur, cook, housecleaner, laundress, homework helper & checker, bedtime story reader, blanket tucker in…

If I actually had a full time job outside the house I’d go crazy. Because I’m also a full time student at an online college.

Let me tell you about online colleges. THEY ROCK. (***IF you have the motivation and discipline to actually do the work without a teacher looking over your shoulder every day).

So, when do I find the time to write?

Now that all the kids are in school, I’ve found I have every weekday for myself. Mostly.

I don’t have a set schedule, but my mornings are devoted to writing and homework. I try to do some of both each day.

I have a schedule of due dates with school. Each lesson takes me a few hours. If I do 1 a day, that should give me a few hours for writing. Theoretically.

I’m a fast writer, and according to my group, very prolific.

But here’s my personal key: I don’t watch TV. I don’t surf the internet unless it’s necessary. (Mostly). I read, but not as much as I used to. In fact, I need to read more.

I think everyone has time to write. It’s not a matter of “When I find the time”, otherwise, most never will.

It’s a matter of priorities. When I wrote for myself, for pleasure, it didn’t happen very often because I never had the time.

When I decided to write to the goal of publication, I sat down and decided my writing was going to be a priority. Never before my family, but a close second, tied with school work.

At first, I could only find 10-15 minutes here or there. Man, you can get a lot of words down each day if you find even a few small bites of time. I carried a notepad everywhere and hand wrote.

Now I have my lovely Neo Alphasmart, and can type when I have the time, then upload to my computer. No more double the work J

So, you tell me. How do you find the time to write while having a life?