Where Does Writing Fit In?

When is the best time to write? It's different for everyone. The best time for me to write is at night. That's when the day's business if finally over and the creative juices get free rein. There are some problems witht his, however. First, I have a family to care for, a child to see to school, so I need to get up early in the morning. and I am not an early riser. The second problem compounds the first. When I write, I get wired. And of course, getting wired at night is a bad idea, since it takes hours to calm down and get to sleep. It doesn't do to wind down at 3:30 am, when you have to get up no later than 7:00 am to start your day.

The alternative is to wake super early in the morning. When I was working, I was out of bed regularly by 5 am to get to work by 7 am. So that shouldn’t be such a chore. But it is. It takes me a long time to get out of bed, shuffle up the stairs, turn on the computer, brew some coffee or tea, and try to get my brain functioning again. Add to that, the disturbance it creates for my husband, who doesn’t have to get up for another two hours, and who gets crabby because he’s grown accustomed to performing his morning routine in complete solitude, and now there’s his wife typing away and staring off into space in the space that was once his alone in the wee hours, asking cheerfully if he’d like her to brew something for him. So, that solution doesn’t work very well. Besides, it’s way too tempting to turn off the alarm and sleep in, Just for Today.

The best alternative is to write during the morning hours, while my son is in kindergarten. The problem here is twofold. E-mail and Blogit provide too tempting of a distraction to benefit from the three hours of solitude. And household chores mostly get put off until the afternoon hours, the time during which I should be tutoring my son on some life basics.

It was a lot easier when I was single. I worked full time, but it was just me I had to worry about. I didn’t have a child who needed lots of attention. I didn’t have a husband who feels threatened when I seem to be devoting more time than he is comfortable with to my projects.

So where does writing fit in my life? I try to squeeze it into the convenient pockets—and there aren’t very many—out of site of my family. Sometimes a Saturday afternoon works out, especially if there is a Formula 1 race, or a soccer game on TV, taking my husband’s mind off of my perceived infidelity. Late at night works out when I have the energy to get started after my son goes to bed, and when I feel I won’t suffer too terribly when I have trouble winding down and get only a couple hours of sleep.

Right now, Blogit is using a lot of writing time. It’s good in a way, because I’m writing—or thinking about writing—every single day. It’s bad, because it takes my mind away from my novel-in-progress, which I promised myself I would not abandon until I finished it.
But at least I’m writing.