When Real Life Interferes with Writer Life
When I sat down at my computer about half an hour ago, my intention was to turn on some soft classical music, drink a mug of hot green tea, and attempt to finish some of the revisions that have been nagging at my brain all day long. It was a solid plan, it really was. However, the reality did not match my expectation. It went a little something like this:
Me: Okay, small offspring of mine. It's time to take a nap! Mommy wants to work on her book, so it's time for you to go off into dreamland.
Offspring: Okay, Mommy! Wuv you!
*I smile, close the door, and exhale deeply*
Two Minutes Later
Offspring: POOP!
Offspring: *giggles loudly* Poop! POOP!
Offspring: Poop, poop, poop! *even louder giggles*
Me: *goes back into bedroom* What’s going on? Do you need to go potty?
Offspring: No potty! No Potty!
Me: Then it’s time to be quiet and take your nap.
Offspring: Okay, Mommy!
* I shut the door again and proceed back into my office with renewed purpose.*
Two Minutes Later
Offspring: POOP!
* A chorus of loud giggling*
Me: *HEADDESK*
I could go on, but I think you get the general idea. (Potty training is such a joy, let me tell you!) Currently, my child is in his room, not napping, and while he is no longer yelling and giggling about poop, my ability to focus on revisions is pretty nonexistent at this point. However, the whole situation gave me the idea for this blog post! (Silver lining?)
So, let’s get down to it:
What do you do when real life interferes with writer life?
How do you find the balance?
When I first began my writing journey way back in 2008, I immediately latched on to some of the most widely dispensed advice for novice writers: That to be a good writer, you must write every single day. In theory, I guess it's sound advice. I mean, you can't be good at something if you don't practice, right? Well, for me, this particular piece of advice was pretty destructive, and very nearly caused me to give up on my writing dream altogether. Why? Because it set up some entirely unrealistic expectations for me—and those expectations led to frustrations, anger, and disappointments.
The last decade has been a whirlwind for me. Between getting married, getting my masters degree, starting a career, having babies (I have three total!), and moving several times, my life has been jam-packed with changes, adjustments, even more changes, and things to acclimate to. Oh, and let’s not forget to add in the fact that I’ve written and published two books and plan to continue pursuing traditional publishing.
As you can imagine, over the years, I have struggled to balance everything on my plate. For a while there, I had myself convinced that I wasn’t a good writer and never would be, simply because I couldn’t write every day like the advice suggested. I would beat myself up for not being able to balance the responsibilities of my everyday life with the duties of my writer life. I was angry and frustrated all of the time and I thought very seriously about giving up on my dream of being an author.
But back in 2015, I finally had a revelation. After years of torturing myself, I decided that the whole “write every day” advice, is complete and utter crap—at least for me. It finally hit me that you don’t have to write every day to be a good writer. To be a good writer, you just have to write. Even if you only write one day a week or maybe two. Even if you only manage a handful of sentences in between diaper changes or a busy meeting day. Whatever you can manage with your schedule, just write. Progress, even if it’s minute, is still progress. And if it doesn’t happen every day? Well, guess what? That is okay.
I think the key to finding balance between your real life and your writer life is learning to show yourself grace. You have to be willing to cut yourself some slack when things don’t go as planned.
I read an interview a while back in which bestselling romance writer, Nora Roberts, was asked how she balances her author career with her personal life. According to Nora, the key to juggling is knowing that of all the balls you juggle, some are made of plastic and some are made of glass. If you drop a plastic ball, no real harm is done. But if you drop a glass ball, it will shatter. It's our job to know which balls are glass and which are plastic—AND we have to prioritize catching the glass ones.
And you can't think of the balls as broad categories such as "work" and "family." The balls represent ALL of the little, different things that go into those categories. Things like, "sign permission slip for field trip," "daily word count goal of 1K," and "homemade dinner from scratch instead of pizza."
Some family stuff is glass and some is plastic. The same is true of work. Sometimes you have to drop a plastic family ball to catch a glass work one. And the reverse is also true.
We can't do it all. Some balls are going to drop—so instead of beating yourself up all the time, think about it as choosing to catch the glass balls over the plastic ones.
God bless, Nora Roberts, am I right?
But seriously, the thing to take away here is this: Real life and writer life are always going to clash—there are ALWAYS going to be things that take you away from your writing. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish things, that you can’t achieve your dreams. You can. It may just take you longer or your path may be curvy instead of straight.
Just keep writing, whenever you can, for however long you can. And be kind to yourself.
It’s all about finding the balance—and being okay when your writing plans go to (as my offspring likes to say) POOP!
Just take a deep breath and tell yourself that you’ve got this. Because you totally do.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my adorable child has just informed me that he pooped in the potty and is demanding that I come look at it and do the potty dance. I guess real life wins today. But hey, there’s always tomorrow, right?
