Why I Don’t Get More Writing Done (a very lengthy post)

I don’t know if this post is going to end up being a rant because I am frustrated. I’m trying to keep a cool head, though.

In movies and even in books, authors are often portrayed as living off of their writing income in a big house (often in a remote area) where they have all this time to relax while working on their next very popular and high selling book. So I don’t blame people when they think that someone like me is living this way. A lot of people probably think I start the day with a cup of coffee, sit on the dock overlooking the lake (or perhaps sitting on my patio while looking at the mountains), and then spending a few hours on my computer (in my “writer’s office”) effortlessly typing away as I work on my books. Everything in my house is quiet. While I have my husband and children still at home, they are all either at work or leaving me in peace to do my work. Then when I’m done, I will have a full course meal that was quick to make, eat with my family at the large dining room table, and perhaps I’ll end the evening with a stroll along my huge acreage or maybe wind down with a glass of wine while watching a movie with my husband.

That, everyone, is a fantasy.

Here’s the truth…

I rent a duplex smack-dab in the middle of a city just south of Omaha. We often hear the ambulance from the nearby hospital, and there are cars with loud music often passing by. Yes, my four children (ages 19-22) still live with me. Two are going to college–one to become an auto mechanic and the other to be a High School or College Math Teacher. The other does have a full-time job, but it’s not enough for him to live on his own due to the cost of everything having skyrocketed over the past few years. The other one lost his job (but it was his fault, so I can’t blame the employer). I’m quickly coming to realize that there is something mentally going on with him, but I don’t know what. He’s 20. That makes him an adult. I can’t force him to get tested or to see a counselor. I’ve looked into it, but unless he poses a threat to others or himself, I can’t make him do anything. And he refuses because society has done a good job of making people believe if there is something mentally wrong with you, then you are stupid. And he doesn’t want to be stupid. He is also deaf, which creates further problems in trying to explain things to him. There is a language barrier that occurs between the hearing and deaf world. As much as you try to teach the English language or as much as you learn to sign, speaking people naturally understand subtle things that the deaf world doesn’t. This ends up creating friction. I’m not saying this is for all deaf people, but it’s been true for my son. (For example, at the clinic earlier this year, the ASL interpreter asked the standard question the doctor wanted to know, which was, “Do you ever get depressed or feel like committing suicide?” My son didn’t thought she signed, “You should kill yourself because you’re sad.” It took a couple of days for me to explain what she meant. Stuff like this happens quite a bit for him. That is what I mean by the language barrier. I’m sure it doesn’t help that he already has a tendency to be paranoid about things. He is now scared to go back to the doctor. Until I can get him to a counselor and then for some testing, I won’t know what is really going on. The teachers all thought he had autism. We have tested him a couple of times for that, and he always came out negative for autism. So what now? All I can do is wait. But in the meantime, I can’t treat him like I do the other kids. He needs more of my time and care. He can be independent to some extent, but until he gets professional help, I don’t think he should live on his own. Now, my other kids? Yes, at some point, they will be on their own, and they will be fine.

Anyway, with that as a background, here is my typical day.

I wake up, and the first thing I do is take care of my eyes with a warm compress because of my dry eye condition. Then I get dressed, gather the laundry, and head on downstairs. I start a load of laundry immediately. I do laundry for everyone in this house. (I know some of you won’t like hearing that, but the clothes have to be put into the washer a certain way, or it will get unbalanced and cause extra time and frustration to balance, and balancing wet clothes or blankets is a huge pain.) Usually, I do 3-4 loads a day. I fold and put everything away as soon as the clothes are done because if I don’t, chances are good that I’ll have to wash them again without people wearing them first. Also, long story short, we have all agreed that towels need to be washed after one use because yeast can linger on these things. (We learned this the hard way.) Towels take up a lot of room.

Anyway, after starting the first load of laundry for the day, I’ll clean up the kitchen. This doesn’t take long, but it does involve me putting away dishes and putting dirty ones in the dishwasher. I usually have a full load to start if I cook something for breakfast. (Now, my kids do make their own food, but they are not into making anything from scratch. I do that for my meals, but usually, only my husband will eat what I make. Sometimes I make breakfast, but most of the time, I’ll wait until lunch time to eat because I’m not hungry yet.) I clear off the counters and clean them.

This is where things start to get iffy on whether or not I can write. Sometimes I go for a walk because it’s the only time when my second son (the future teacher) has time to go downtown with me, and I like having someone to talk to while I walk. He likes to do the full 5 mile trek. We park in Council Bluffs, Iowa at the Bob Kerry Bridge. Then we cross the Missouri River, and that takes us into downtown Omaha, Nebraska. From there, we go around the Old Market where, if it’s hot, I’ll get a tea to help cool down. I can sweat when it’s 60 degrees out, everyone. I don’t start off sweating. I might be a little cool, but within a half hour, I’m fine. And then an hour later, I’m hot. If it’s 60, I can go without the tea, but if it’s close to 70, I need something cold to help bring down my internal thermometer or I become a puddle of sweat. Meanwhile, other people are wearing jackets and coats. My son is even wears a flannel shirt over his t-shirt.

Anyway, he insists on the long walk, and that takes a total of three hours when you count getting there, walking, and coming home. By then, I have to make lunch. I cut up vegetables to cook with the meat. From start to finish, this takes a good two hours, but I’m also doing some laundry between all of this, too. I don’t like to write when I eat because I’ll forget to eat, and my food will go cold, and I can’t rush eating at the TV either because now if I eat too fast, the food won’t go down the right way. That is not fun for me or anyone who happens to be in the room. This is the day when I only eat one meal, so I usually have two salads (with different types of veggies), a bowl of fruit, my main veggie and meat dish, and dark chocolate. On average, I will spend 2-3 hours a day in the kitchen cooking. I used to eat out, but that got expensive. Now, I go to Trader Joe’s, and I cook everything from scratch. I have even created some new recipes. I have found cutting vegetables actually relaxes me, so I enjoy it. I end up taking about an hour to eat. I know, it’s insane. I used to eat fast when I was younger. But then, I have to do another load of dishes because the stuff I used to cook the meal is quite a bit, and the pan is a good size. I save some for my husband so he has something when he comes home from dinner. Then I finish with laundry, take out trash, take a shower, and do my wind down routine (and yes, taking care of my eyes is a part of this). Then I listen to a book while I drift off to sleep. My husband typically comes home after I’m in bed. I wake up around 4am. I get to bed around 5-6pm. He gets off work at 5pm, but it takes him time to get home. So that’s it. My non-writing day. I do the walk to stay in good physical health. I typically walk about 3 times a week. Sometimes I’ll go for 4 if I go on a weekend with my husband and son.

Now, on the non-walking days, I might get in some writing. I might get in some writing if someone doesn’t need to talk to me. About 50% of the time, I’ll get a phone call, a text, or someone will come into my room. Usually, it’s one of the kids or my husband. But sometimes it has to do with “other”, and I hate “other”. For example, today I had to deal with the bank. At other times, I end up having to leave the house to run an errand. I have sometimes used a day to do my grocery shopping because when my husband doesn’t come along, I can save at least $50. He likes to buy the cookies, cakes, and ice cream. I don’t buy these things, and he doesn’t like that because then he’s stuck with only healthy food. This man is so good at spotting a sweet treat that he will actually find something tucked away toward the very back of the fridge (behind even the salads I’ve prepared) to get to it. Meanwhile, the salads go untouched. If it turns out, my husband or kids want to talk, I do stop writing to talk to them. They don’t bug me about stupid stuff. These are things that are really troubling them, so I feel it’s only fair to give them my undivided attention. I will say that they have learned that writing is a job for me.

I take weekends off since that’s when most people are off work so I can spend time with them.

That typically leaves me with 2-3 days when I actually do write. I love to write, but there are aspects of it that are stressful. I won’t go into all of that here since the post got long. Let’s just say that stress does make it difficult to be creative, and when an author isn’t creative, it’s like pulling teeth to write the book. I used to be able to write a lot faster. Back then, I ate out a lot (so I didn’t spend so much time in the kitchen) and had kids in school while my husband worked (so that was uninterrupted time). I also didn’t do much exercise. Things have shifted, and I have found that I’m busier than ever. I also want to do romance horror under a pen name. I have pretty much given up on marketing. I did not start making money because I was good at marketing. I happened to come into this at the gold rush days of self-publishing. That was luck and timing. Nothing else. There was no secret to how I managed to make a living at this, and quite frankly, I’m more surprised than anyone else that this ever happened to me. Fast food workers make more than I do at this point, and I have over 100 books out. Yes, that does create some stress because I’m told that if I was doing the right things, I’d be making more money, and I’m not. I have tried some things to market, but they all failed, and quite frankly, that only stressed me out even more. Honestly, I don’t want to market. It is sucking all the fun out of this for me.

Okay, so the last thing I have to say is that please understand that I can’t write books as fast as I used to. Life just doesn’t permit it for me, and it stresses me out when someone asks me when I’ll have another book out. I don’t know. I’m doing good if I can write 2,000 words a week right now. And I really need this pen name because I need something fresh to work on. I have done 100 romances, and it’s hard for me to keep up that kind of momentum on one single genre. I need to do some horror for a change to help equal things out. So my new estimate is that I might be able to get 2 books out next year. I need to stop doing series. Too many people refuse to read a series until it’s done. I know I already started the Marriage by Chemical Series, so I’ll keep that, but this Marriage by Holiday Series has to go. Masquerade Bride is now going to be a standalone. I can’t keep up the kind of pacing to make a quick enough turnaround work for series books anymore.