Getting Personal: My Life and Future Books

All right, every single day I get several messages or comments about when something new is coming out. This is good, keep asking, I do my best to answer everyone and it does keep me motivated. I am working on the next Arcadia book and also a few other projects, however, there are some issues that have come up and I haven’t been able to write much at all.

Normally, I don’t talk this much about my personal life. I keep my issues at home where they belong. Rarely ever will you catch me posting or writing about anything that is a serious thing going on with me. Sure I post things like “Oh, my kids, I can’t get any work done.” but that is nothing, I have five kids and it’s a give in that it is hard to get things done when there are kids around making all kinds of racket and always needing something. 

I know your all thinking “Oh my goodness, she is getting divorced” or something of the like. No, it’s nothing like that.

Here’s the thing. When you work from home, it’s hard to separate the home life and the work life. I have five children who are 17, 11, 9, 5 and 3.  When I first published and made this a career, my youngest was a newborn and it was a lot easier to get things done as far as writing goes. At that same time my 9 year old was only in Kindergarten, so school wasn’t such a big deal. Now, they are at very tender ages where they all need different kinds of attention.

My husband helps as much as he can, I won’t describe what he does or his work schedule cause I’m not allowed to talk about that, but mostly it’s me who has to carry out the consistency, the discipline, make sure homework is done, make sure they bathe, brush their teeth, do their chores, attend any activities they have and all that day to day stuff that some people who only have ONE kid have a hard time keeping up with.

On top of that I have housework. UGH! (No dishwasher)

I basically have no time to write.

And on top of that, there is the business side of writing and the social networking. I can do the social networking stuff because it’s easy with my cell phone. Thank goodness.

Because of my schedule, I was staying up all night to try and get work done. I would wake up in my recliner with my laptop and a kinked neck. I got to a point where I didn’t care about myself, it was all about getting the work done because that is what makes the money. Slowly, I fell into a depression that I had been on the brink of for a very long time. I have fought depression my entire life and am familiar with fighting it off, but the stress, the worry and the lack of identity for myself finally spewed over. I broke down.

I could go into all the details of this, but I wont.

I am better now. I’ve snapped out of it and am on a strict workout and eating plan. This helps a lot because it makes me feel better. Exercise is always good for the health and happiness, as is eating well and drinking lots of water.

But, now that I’m feeling better, my kiddos are having issues. One of my kids is having terrible problems in school with concentration and staying on task. There is wayyyyy more to what is going on with this child but it’s something that I need to monitor every minute of the day. It’s all behavioral, not health, so no worries. The teacher and I are working closely to try and get this corrected.

Another of my kids has been dealing with bullies all year.

The smaller two children are feeding off all the chaos in my home and acting like crazy animals half the time.

The only thing that is going to fix this situation is constant attention and a consistent schedule for them. Which is what I have been doing. I am literally on top of everything they are doing at all times.

So … my day usually goes like this now. Wake up at six, wake all kids up, make sure everyone is getting ready and out of bed (up the stairs/down the stairs), make coffee, get little ones breakfast, change a diaper, send kids to bus, go start car (shovel snow and wipe car if needed), get little guys ready and in car, take oldest to school (20 minute drive), drop kid off and head home. Once home, eat my daily serving of plain oatmeal, drink water, drink coffee, do a few chores, check Facebook and all my sales numbers, check emails, check other stuff, work out for an hour, shower, get ready (with clothes, not pajamas), depending on the day, do some ironing, do some laundry (2 loads every day), do dishes, all the other surface housework like vacuuming and stuff, do one heavy cleaning thing like the bathtub. Uh oh, time to go get the oldest from school. So, wake up hubby, rush to pick up kid, rush home to meet the other two so I can make sure they get their snack, do homework, silent reading, chores and showers. I usually start dinner during all of that, by the time dinner is over the youngest is ready for bed so I sit with him until he falls asleep (using my phone to catch up on social networking, emails and other stuff.) After that, I make the kids clean the table and kitchen, then it’s time to go to bed.

This is not everyday, but it’s the norm. Sometimes I have errands or appointments.

So you see what I’m saying. I have nowhere in there to get the writing done, the part where I have to be in the zone. I simply cannot do it. It has come to a point where I have had to pick between my children and my career …. we all know that I pick the children. They are most important, the writing can wait, but they can’t. They need me and I won’t be “that mom.” 

I am not giving up completely. I still need to make money, I still need to make an income for our family to survive and with no new releases that means that I have to sell the old stuff. It means that I have to keep up the social networking so that people don’t forget me. This is hard, I am sacrificing a lot because my income literally pays half the bills, but I know in my heart it is the right decision.

I’m sorry, you have all been so supportive and so wonderful, but my kids come first and I have to be here for them. In addition to this, I am a wife and I want to be a good wife, which means I do nice things for my husband like make his lunch for him and give him the attention that he deserves.

Take what you want from this post, I just wanted to give a good explanation to all those who have been asking about future books. I appreciate each and everyone of you so much and also wanted to say thank you for all that you have done to support me and my books.