I was cleaning the other day, prepatory to my husband coming home from working several states away, to attend our son's high school graduation. I have a procedure I follow: I keep random notes and items I've written, often stashed at the back of notepads on clipboards or slipped between the pages of books or stuffed into envelopes with old receipts. Whenever I finally get around to going through my papers, I re-read these scribblings one more time before I discard them.
One such paper -- from nearly 12 years ago -- was a response I'd planned to write to an article that appeared in The Writer. The author of the article had written about the guilt she felt spending time away from her family writing, and the converse guilt she felt spending time away from her writing with her family. She was in a quandary, afraid she'd lose respect, that she wouldn't be regarded as a REAL writer unless she put in a set number of hours or words a day when there was no realistic way she could do it.
My response, not terrifically written, nevertheless reminded me that I'd been a busy young mother of 5 at the time (I had 6 ultimately), also beseiged by potential guilt over how I spent my time. Then, as now, I had to divide my time amongst the several top priorities I'd heaped on my plate. And, although it wasn't great prose, my response holds as true now as it did then. I spend my time where it is needed most, and I spend it as passionately as I can doing whatever I need do: fetching and carrying teenagers, cooking, gardening with my husband, singing with my twin daughters in choir, dancing, writing. As with any long project, great or not-so-great, every little bit adds up to a lot.
Over the years I've written an ebook, a mystery, a church history, a communications guide, several magazine articles; created web sites, coached writing and newspaper at our schools -- bit by bit. I've also helped my husband raise our 6 kids.
Son number 1 (child number 3) is the one graduating high school. 3 more are to follow. And I'm working on 5 more projects and still coaching writing and newspaper.
Bit by bit, word by word, task by task, everything piles up to create the mound that will be my life's work. I can have it all, just not all at once. Everything in it's own turn. It takes patience, and it takes passion, and, in the favorite word of my children's mentor, it takes perseverance.
Perhaps, by the time child number 6 graduates, I'll have all my projects caught up as well..... or not.
