If I’m writing every day
Why am I not coming up with anything that I want to keep???? I’ve been thinking about this all week. The baby wakes up at 3am and I feed her while I contemplate various adoption studies. I think about it in the shower. I meditate on official agency statements and bulletin board flamewars while I scrub bottles, hustle laundry downstairs, and say “How big is Madison?” in a cheerful voice for the umpteenth time.
Every night I’ve been at the kitchen table or at the library or at a bookstore pounding away. I made a long brainstorm list, I made tons of notes, I read study after study, trying to sift out truth from propaganda and by god, I wrote. I made several false starts and a couple of good beginnings and several middling middles.
I figured it out, I figured it out while I was driving to pick Noah up from Spanish. We had a freak snowstorm for about ten minutes so I was trying to focus on the road and while I wasn’t looking at the mess in my head I realized how I needed to write it. Then I had 45 minutes of chasing the baby around the Spanish teacher’s un-babyproofed home (her children are into legos and Madison is into eating legos) and a drive back with Noah nattering on in the backseat. We walked in, I set the baby down and she immediately grabbed my legs and started to scream. I spoke soothingly to her while I flipped through the mail Noah handed me, then picked her up, carried her into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle. Half a bottle later, she wanted to play. I picked up toys while pretending to play with her, checked the voicemail (my sister called), checked my email (work is demanding something) and then tried to fix the work thing while simultaneously chatting with Madison. Needless to say when Noah asked to go watch television I said — with enthusiasm — “Yes!!!”
Finally I got the baby down to nap and I boot up here and it’s gone. Totally gone.
I hate myself. I hate my life.
No, wait. I love myself and I love my life but my god, I hate this. Dammit dammit dammit.
It’s just how it is, right? But I’m (relatively) young and I have time, right? I have no deadline — it’s not a time sensitive story but my god, I am so depressed about this. This was going to be the test of whether or not I could make time to sell a book and you know what? I don’t think I can.
God, I just want to go pound my head against a wall. (Instead I’m listening to This Mortal Coil — same thing, really.)
I feel your pain. Wanting to work, needing to work, but being so distracted that when you get the time to work, the mental list is gone.
I work out of the house. I have two special needs kids that attend school until 1 and I’m still scrambling. But now I can prioritize what I have to do and usually get the things I want to do back in there before they are home.
It is hard to have a baby at home (you know, and pay attention to her!) and just think. I had to let them rule the schedule and I was able to get some work done when I could. A little during naps, then at night of course. I call it the smoke and mirrors period - clients thought I did so much more work than I did.
I can only tell you that is does get easier to juggle when #2 gets older.
Dawn
I am sorry. It’s a rough spot. In some ways it gets easier, and in others, it’s just as hard. The baby demands your constant physical attention. The older child demands more emotional and mental involvement.
I know last year when I was finishing my seminar on adoption I would be in the shower or about to go to sleep and get all sorts of brilliant ideas. Entire beautifully put sentences right there in front of me. It was never the moment to write them down. Even the post it note with a phrase or two wouldn’t bring them back in all their glory, once I finally had time to write them down. I look at that project now and know I could have done better, I did do better, I just didn’t committ to paper in time.
I don’t know if this is the price of having other obligations in your life, or I have ADD and don’t apply myself or organize myself or something. I still write a damn good run-on sentence though.
I think you are a wonderful writer. I hope your muse shows up when you can use her.
Dawn I am sorry. You know in many ways it gets easier as they get older, they don’t demand so much physical attention. I do find as they age they occupy a good part of emotional and mental space.
Last year I was working on my senior seminar project on adoption I had a hard time writing. I would be in the shower, or drowsing off to sleep and I would have a brilliant insight. Sometimes even complete beautiful sentences were right there in front of me, just waiting to show the world what I wanted to say. Then hours later when I had time to commit these passages to paper, they would be gone. Even writing a word or a series of words wouldn’t jog my thought process again in the same way.
I finished the paper, but I honestly know it would have been better before I had so many obligations. I think it’s hard to have two vocations- no matter what they are- and feel totally satisfied with both of them.
I hope your muse comes at the perfect time, and you get some satisfaction.
So sorry you’re having a frustrating time, Dawn… I don’t have any advice, but know I’m thinking about you.
xxoo
I totally understand. It’s very, very, very frustrating.
And you are braver than I to listen to This Mortal Coil when you’re already feeling blue. Yikes!
Goodness, Dawn, do I EVER hear you. That scenario you described…well, it’s happened to me more times than I’d like to count.
The good stuff will come back. I just hope it does sooner rather than later!
what the heck happened to my comment?
was it here?
I wonder if it would make any sense to get a mini tape recorder like the big CEOs used to use in luxury car commercials in the 90s. That way you could speak what you had when you had it in your head. And then play it back for yourself when you had the time to write it down.
I refuse to believe that you’re the only writer who can’t just sit down and write when the idea is there. There’s got to be a way to capture the idea when it’s hot so you can actually come back to it.
I feel your pain too! But you are doing all the right things. If you can think of it once, you can think of it again. Seriously. I am so impressed that you are writing every day.
Mini tape recorder in the car for future such situations?
I understand this. Happens to me in the shower. Happens to me whenever I say to myself, “Oh, I don’t need to write that down.”
There should be a utility for the brain to log our thoughts the way various sessions relating to computer usage can be logged. The log could then be searched the same way the computer ones can be.
Hmmm, beyond the tape recorder, there are even little key chain type recorders. This could be carried around on one’s person all day, for use not only in the car but also while doing household and childcare tasks (but, damn, not in the shower).
I’m going through the same thing except I DO have a deadline and this is my first “big big” money article. I feel like I’m just going to screw it all up and throw my writing career down the tubes.
Lord help me. I’m just SO distracted lately.