Writing with kids

Writing with kids. It may not be perilous like running with scissors. But it's a much more formidable task.

I still haven't figured out how to do it. Stephen King has three children, all grown now but he somehow managed to write prodigiously all through the time that they were being raised. John Grisham? Two children. John Irving? Three children. How, I wonder, do they do it?

The Toddler has become both my greatest inspiration for writing as well as my biggest obstruction. Each year I tell myself it's got to get easier. But The Toddler is about to enter year No. 3 and I'm still not finding it any easier to make time for writing my next novel.

This evening I started pecking away on the keyboard around 8:30. I was in a bit of a groove. The muse was working. I was feeling good. Then, about fifteen minutes later, Mommy and The Toddler walk into the office. The Toddler wants Daddy to go potty with him and to put him to sleep.

We used to have this agreement worked out in our family wherein Mommy and Daddy took turns each night putting The Toddler to sleep. This gave the parental units every other night off. The Toddler, however, has found a way to breach this agreement. He now wants one of us to read and the other to put him to sleep, so he gets the best of both worlds while there's no rest for Mommy and Daddy.

So I lead The Toddler into the loo and he begins to sing our nighttime song, "Hush Little Baby." It's been our lullaby since the time he was old enough to be cradled in my arms, though he still stumbles on the lyrics. He makes a halfhearted attempt at going pee. "I did it," he says heroically.

"That was it?" I say.

"Uh-huh."

"Uh-huh." I lead him into the bedroom and he crawls into bed and I situate myself in my spot next to the bed and commence to rubbing his back while serenading him with "Hush Little Baby."

"Again", he demands after my first rendition.

Three encores later he has finally settled down so that I can stop singing and lay my body down on the floor. Another fifteen minutes pass before he is in full snooze mode.

I exit his room at 9:45 p.m. Mommy is crashed. The muse I had for my novel is gone, replaced with the inspiration The Toddler has given me to write all that you have just read.

It is now 10:30 and time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow perhaps I'll find time to write that next novel. There's always tomorrow.

Comments

[Bethany]

I could have written this post. Almost word for word. It is THE most frustrating part of writing and parenting. The muse and the child don't sync up their schedules.