Let me start this post off by saying I started it yesterday! This leads me to my post subject today. A few days ago Talina and I were having a venting session about never being able to sit down and write without something coming up. It made me recall a statement my dear hubby asked the other day. “How long does it take to write a novel anyway?” OKAY STOP RIGHT THERE! So with that being said the following events took place on Sunday as I sat down with the intention of blogging on both blogs and then writing on my WIP.
I got up straightened up the house while Bob and the Golden Boy did their own thing. I knew at some point I had to go grocery shopping because I had promised a Sunday dinner with all the fixings. I had just sat down and had my blog page opened, then I hear,
“Hey mama, when are you going to cook dinner?”
Knowing that the Golden Boy was on his third snack since lunch, I look over my glasses and say, “Jacob, are you hungry already?”
To which he replies, “I’m starving.”
So I get up throw on clothes and makeup and run do the dreaded deed of grocery shopping with B-daddy in tow. I get home put up the groceries, then put the chicken in the oven. While it is baking, I again sit down to write. I get a portion of the way through when the oven bell dings. I stop typing and get up take the now baked chicken out of the oven, batter it and throw it into the frying pan. Since I’m already up, I then mix the broccoli casseroles and pop them in the oven and clean up my mess. I hurry and sit back down again before I lose my train of thought, but not for very long.
Now, Jacob is in the middle of a melt down because Verizon’s phone service had a blimp and for a little while no one in the state of South Carolina phones were working. Well Jacob took this as a personal attack on his three thousand text quota he must meet every month. For fifteen minutes until it came back up all I heard was,
“Mama what’s wrong with the phones they still aren’t working? Try yours mama to see if it will do anything.”
“Jacob be patient.” I say a hundred times in twenty minutes.
I’m sitting back at the computer trying to listen to everything Jacob was saying to me, talking to B-daddy when he says something and waiting for the timer to go off so I get back up and pull the casseroles out and pop in the blueberry cobbler I had mixed up. At this point it is safe to say I have totally lost my train of thought about what I had begun writing about.
This made me begin to wonder if the people in my household ever wondered what it actually takes to sit down and write anything that you have to basically pull out of thin air. Do they even realize that I have to actually be able to sit down in front of my computer or my notebook and put words on the screen? Not to mention the fact that in order to write a novel you have to create characters that doesn’t even exist, build a world that only revolves around those imaginary people, come up with a plot that involves a set of problems for your main characters, interesting dialogue that will keep your reader from tossing your novel in the trash, and oh yeah, let’s not forget the happily ever after every one wants at the end. Whew, big order isn’t it.
Oh by the way just as I had the above thought the timer went off and I set about serving dinner, cleaning up the kitchen again, tucked Jacob in at bedtime and sat down with B-daddy to watch a program together. So if you haven’t guessed it yet…………I got absolutely zero done on my blogs or my writing before bedtime.
The moral of this story you may be wondering. The next time you pick up a book at your book store as you read, appreciate the author that had the time to sit down and create it! I can promise you it wasn’t without a few interruptions unless they are locked up in a closet or on a deserted island!
And lastly, if you have someone in your life that is trying to break out in the writing world because it’s their passion and they have the gift of creating a fabulous story out of nothing remember this post the next time you want to ask them how long it takes to write a novel. Offer them a word of encouragement for making time to do all the things they manage to do as a mom, a wife and a writer. Even though they have a million things going on at once, they’re still able to create that wonderful world of make believe we all love to escape to.
