Carving Out Time

When people think of a writing career, many of them think about the challenges of finding an agent and a publisher, or maybe the challenge of coming up with original ideas.

I found a publisher almost by accident and I have more ideas than I'll ever be able to use. The aspect of a writing career that I am, thus far, finding most challenging is carving out the time to write. Not to mention time to do all of the other associated tasks that are career essential but don't further my word count.

Working from home currently means that I also have to handle all of the child care. I have three children aged 11, 3 and 6 months. In an average day, all of their needs are met before I can consider opening my laptop. It's not at all uncommon for me to be feeding the baby, entertaining the toddler and try to market my work all at once. Often my laptop lies open and forlorn on the dining table, while I try to find 5 minutes to jot down a few sentences.

None of this is a complaint - I recognise how incredibly lucky I am to have the opportunity to write at all. When I started this blog I promised to talk about my journey to publication, the whole unvarnished truth. At the time, I thought I would be telling you about rejections and knocks to my ego but instead, this is what I'm presently finding difficult.

This has all been my long way of asking you to stick with me. More work is coming - in fact I have several projects lined up that I hope to have news about in the coming months - but it's looking like my production is going to be slower than I had hoped.