Any one else out there?

[pegkerr]

I ask this periodically: Apropos of my last entry, are there any other women out there (on LJ or otherwise) that you know of who are holding down a full-time job outside the home AND raising children AND trying to write novels? Am I really as rare a bird as I think?

Edited to add: You do realize that if there are a lot of 'em pulling this off, then I have no excuse. (Great. More guilt.)

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Well, that describes me pretty well, except I've got that pesky Y chromosome...

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

I know at least three others on LJ (besides you and me!) and two in RL. You're not rare, dear--but what beautiful plumage!

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

::raises hand::

I'm a full-time software engineer, mother, and I write novels. (None published yet, but my agent is working on that.) Last year, I managed to meet several tight work deadlines, rewrite the novel, and study for my black belt. I'm still not sure how I did that -- other than getting up at a four or five am.

[somedaysawriter.livejournal.com]

In about three months, I'll be joining that club.

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

sorry. i've only got 2 out of 3.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Me. Full-time technical writer, two adolescent kids. The novel is currently in fifth place behind all the above and afternoon naps (my own).

[castiron.livejournal.com]

For my own sanity, I've decided that I'm formally On Hiatus when it comes to novel-writing (it's been all I can do to squeeze out three short pieces of fanfic over the last year), but if "dammit, these characters are not leaving me alone, so WHY won't they go out my fingers onto the keyboard?" counts as trying, then yep. Full-time job outside home, raising kid, trying to write a novel (or even revise previously written draft to publishable point). Also divorced, and kid is autistic; this probably explains why my writing brain has been goop for the past few years.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Who are the others, please?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Moi.

[quiller77.livejournal.com]

Only work part-time, but the two social-butterfly teens still at home seem to feel obligated to keep me extra busy (with good stuff, fortunately). Otherwise I'm in your boat, or the one right next to it.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

I don't really qualify (I work from home and have a two-year-old and try to write). My work sporadic, but intense when it's in (I pulled 40+ hour weeks the past two weeks, most of it after the two-year-old went to bed). I try to make the most of my non-work times by focusing on the writing as much as possible. I regularly pull 2 a.m. bedtimes, then get up at 7:30 with Meg the next morning.

Sleep? What's that? *weak laugh*

harmonyfb and crevette whom are both in my real-life writing group, both work outside the home, raise kids, and write (short stories and novels). They use different tactics: harmonyfb used her lunch hours and early mornings before the kids wake up to write; she works longhand and transcribes it all into the computer later. (Currently, she is at home recuperating from the birth of #3.) crevette is more like me, pulling the late nights. She's been trying to get herself back into the writing groove as well.

[fairmer.livejournal.com]

I work full time, write mainly short stories but am on novel #2, and help raise a stepdaughter. But we only have her every other week, and my husband acts more as a primary parent.

We'll see what happens in about three years, when we will petition the powers that be for another child.

But, what's "pulling it off" anyway? My work may be full time, but it's just that. I don't take it home mentally, it doesn't unduly stress me, I'm not climbing any ladders or approaching any ceilings, glass or otherwise. In fact, I'm deliberately not advancing my "career" in hopes that I can apply that mental effort towards writing.

It's a three-way stretch, and for me, there has to be give somewhere. I'd go bonkers if I actually cared about my job. (Not that I don't *care*, mind you, and I show up, and do good work, I just... it's neither Thing One nor Thing Two.

[kfitzwarin.livejournal.com]

I don't have kids but I'm also in graduate school after a relatively long hiatus from higher ed (and work full time and write) - does that count?

[boxofdelights]

Am raising kids and writing a novel. Could not possibly work a full-time job as well. No way. Could barely write when I had a part time job. And only managed that by shorting sleep.

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

Let's see . .

1) Two kids both at home (one year and four years)
2) Part-time business (marketing & technical) freelance writer
3) Local singer/songwriter and also filker :-)
4) Choosing to stay at home with the kids, planning on ramping up the freelance business to full-time when the second one starts preschool.

As far as I am concerned, with two littles at home and juggling freelance work, and managing to steal time to songwrite, that's *enough.* But I just can't NOT write, I would go more insane than I already do.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

porphyrin, if you count her residency as a full-time job (and not, y'know, two full-time jobs).

[siriologist.livejournal.com]

Well, ever since starting the full time job last July, all potentially creative thoughts have been driven from my mind by work, moving, kids extracurriculars, and making dinner. I had vain dreams of writing a real novel, but just can't see where I'd find the creative energy. Even my meager fanfic suffered as it was nearly 9 months between chapters and the last chapter wasn't all that great a climax for such a long piece of work.

I feel your pain, and I don't even excercise as much as you (although I did get up every morning this week and NodikTrak for 25 mins...go me!) But don't feel guilty or abnormal, or anything bad about neglecting your novel. It will come when it can, meanwhile enjoy the kids, don't stress about it. It's in you and will come out when you have room to give it the chance. Meanwhile kids have to get where kids have to get. And they take more emotional and intellectual energy as they grow up (babies and toddlers take physical energy, but for school age kids its problem solving, soothing, arranging, signing stuff, and not forgetting that the fundraiser is due today. Give yourself slack and think about it while you excersise...maybe??? (Me, I'm watching Alias, Season 1 DVD's :) )

I was a single mother finishing college

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

And I got my degree, and now here I am, working at Cub Foods. Weeha. ;-) But my health and sanity are much improved since my days in the corporate cubicle world, and my Muse has come back to life.

While my son was young, I was attending college. I didn't start novel writing in earnest until I was working full time, but then he was in school and so that helped; as he got older, he got more independent and friends-oriented, and all that. Once your kids are teenagers, that'll bring its own special challenges (heh) but they will also be a lot less clingy. In fact, you will probably wonder at times if they've moved to another state.

The need for paycheck never seems to go away, unless you're one of the lucky few who happen to write the right book at the right time and get the right connections with the right publisher and the right public to have it suddenly take off and generate lots of money. Yet novels still get written. So I guess there are a lot of people out there juggling the usual responsibilities and still squeezing their writing in.

All of which is rambly and probably useless, but I'm sitting at Sebastian Joe's on Hennepin and Franklin and feeling guilty because I've been on this computer way more than 15 minutes, so it's hard to think calmly and clearly at the moment. ;-)

A short answer: I did writing when I was juggling all that, but it got a lot easier after my son graduated from high school and got out on his own. Now I just have the job competing with my Muse.

And remember, you've already published two books; I've written several, published none. So I've no doubt you'll eventually get this one written, and published, as well; you've established the habit, and the momentum, and you seem to be able to make the necessary connections to fit all the pieces together. ;-) You're a lot more together than you seem to realize.

More musings, maybe more helpful

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

So as I was sitting here at Sebastian Joe's mulling over my own work in progress and getting in touch with my characters, my mind kept wandering back to this post of yours, and to your novel.

One recurrent impression I'm getting is that you're struggling to keep connected emotionally with your main character, what she's all about, the *core* of your character and her identity and conflict. I know from my own experience that the external responsibilities and demands of life continually pose the problem of drawing me out of that "deep listening," that concentrated inner communion that has me living inside the skin of my POV character. My week of vacation in January, in which I was able to basically shed all external obligations for a week and spend all my time at home writing and sleeping and eating and thinking, served to recharge me and reconnect me emotionally and intuitively with my Muse, and yielded a new character and new novel that suddenly demanded I write as fast as I could to get it down. I had to go back to work, but in the momentum from that week of "retreat" I got my first, sketchy draft finished in a month. Now I'm doing the "detail" work, plodding and patient (hah) and tedious, and I'm continually reminded NOT TO GET TOO CEREBRAL in working with my story.

In the process, I've also begun to reconnect with the protagonist of *Mistlands* and better understand where I got stuck in *that* story.

If I'm missing the boat here, well, take what works for you and leave the rest, but I'm thinking maybe you've gotten stuck in that "cerebralizing" pattern of surface-level analysis of the story at the expense of the "deep connection," and that you need to somehow take some time to get away all to yourself -- even if you can only swing a one-day retreat at a hotel room or Franciscan retreat center or whatever -- and just go inside and "listen deeply" and reconnect with the emotional core of your novel. I know it's hard to make that time, especially with your kids being young right now, but it's also worth it and necessary to yourself and your writing to carve it out, somehow. Try it, and see what happens.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm more male than female, though not exactly either. I've got a full-time job, an 18-month-old, and a novel I'm gonna send to a publisher any day now when I get an hour and a clear brain to write the cover letter ... which ... will be any day now, really. The *novel* is in fine shape.

[bordergold.livejournal.com]

My mother is historian who writes biographies and the occasional novel (though she works in Chinese, being, you know, Chinese), and she's currently raising me & the brother, though, since I'm 17, I don't exactly need the same kind of care as Delia and Fiona. She doesn't work currently, as my father brings in enough to pay for everything. However, when I was around eight and my brother two, she was working full time as well as writing. She eventually burned out, which is when she quit, so don't feel bad. :)

Good luck with everything - after reading The Wild Swans, I, for one, am waiting with baited breath for the ice palace novel.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Excuse. Pfeh. No, it just means that, if there /are/ a lot of them pulling this off, they have different circumstances and personalities than you do.

(I mean, just as two examples, you're depressed. Plus also, for quite a long time and maybe now (I don't know), Rob and you had very different work schedules. That contributes.)

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

I know a woman who is doing her four year degree with me, but unlike me, is married and gave birth to and started raising two children in the meantime. She also runs two miles a day I think.
I really don't know how people can be so organized and not waste time on anything....

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

by that I meant the way they live their lives so robotically, with a schedule for everything...isn't life meant to happen to you and not the other way around?:P

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

Peg, please don't guilt yourself like that.

I'm 35 and have never had a serious partner.
Or a real career, or portfolio.
Most days I know that this doesn't make me some lower-order.

All this question has proven is that your goals aren't untouchable.

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

I believe my friend mayakda fits your criteria.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Guilty. As charged. And it's not bloody working! *kicks wip*

Adding you to my flist. Coz moms of a feather should caw racously together.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Delighted to meet you, and have added you back.

*sigh* It is awfully hard, isn't it? I look forward to reading your journal and learning more about your progress on this (sometimes seemingly impossible) journey.