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Married mother of three seeking scientist for dinner…
By Dawn Montgomery | July 29, 2008
Today’s post comes to us from Emma Ray Garrett. As a full-time-stay-at-home-Mom, things get pretty hectic around her household. So without further ado…
Married Mother of Three Seeking Scientist for Dinner, Movies, and Possible Cloning
By: Emma Ray Garrett
All right, I’m kidding about the dinner and movies - but not the cloning. Mostly because I don’t have time for wining and dining anyone right now, not even myself. For most working mothers, this is a common problem. There’s just not enough time in the day for everything that needs our attention. However, a majority of working mothers actually leave the house for employment.
I don’t.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, I’m on call as mother, as wife, nurse, receptionist, counselor, housekeeper, and so many other occupations. Hell, if I received a wage based on my skill set, I wouldn’t need to worry about another thing in life - something I’m sure most mothers would surely agree with me on. I’ll be honest, there are days where I wish I punched a time clock, so to speak, at any number of the aforementioned jobs rather than be a work from home mother.
However, for me, and for a lot of stay at home or work from home moms I know, choosing employment outside the home isn’t a logical option. When the cost of daycare can, in many places, exceed the income a mother makes working in ‘the market’, it’s simply more responsible - and economical - to stay home. With the rising cost of food and gasoline, I wouldn’t be surprised to see telecommuting become the wave of the future, complete with more moms and dads working from home and raising children at the same time.
Telecommuting, though unusual, isn’t abnormal. If my work revolved around IM troubleshooting for an insurance company or providing customer service through an internet interface, I wouldn’t worry too much about breaking up the inevitable ‘she took my toy/he hit me’ argument between my kids. After all, the person I would be helping wouldn’t see or hear me tell the kids to knock it off or go take a time out. They wouldn’t know I was taking care of their problems while in my pajamas with “Go, Diego, Go!” blaring on the
television.
Being a writer though, takes working from home to a whole new level. Readers don’t know I’m sitting in my pj’s and arbitrating whatever dispute arises - and truthfully, they probably don’t care, which is for the best in my opinion. If I got fan letters asking what I was wearing, I think I’d change professions. That said my children don’t need to read over my shoulder the more mature content of my stories. Considering they are ten, eight, and five years old, I imagine you can understand why I do almost no writing when the kidlets are at home. The five year old can’t read complex words yet, but the eight and ten year olds certainly can and they are way too nosy for my own good.
Don’t forget, I’m also married. Ten years and still trucking, though I’m honest enough to say sometimes I’d like to hit him with that truck. Regardless, my husband and I also need time together and, much as our children, he also needs attention from me. He needs me to listen to his day, be a sounding board for his grunts and groans, and show him affection and interest. Since my husband works a hectic schedule of irregular shifts, I find myself with very little time for personal grooming - if I hope to do it alone. That’s not to mention sleep and, oh yeah, writing. I’ve sacrificed a lot of sleep over the last three years since I began freelance writing as a vocation and not a hobby.
By now, you’re probably wondering why in the hell I do it? Maybe how I do it (in just less than two and a half years I’ve written fifteen novellas with an average word count of approx. 27,000 words)? You might be asking why I’d continue to go on five or less hours sleep a day, maintaining hearth and home, entertaining spouse and children, all the while never having time off or a vacation? What’s it all worth?
To answer the why question, well that’s easy. It wouldn’t matter whether I were published or not, I’d still be creating stories. Some of them would stay in my head, daydreaming sojourns to take when the boredom wears me down. Others would go into yet another journal, tablet, binder and join the hundreds I already have in boxes. I never aspired to be a writer. I’ve been writing, making up stories to tell, creating worlds and characters, for as long as I can remember. I wanted to be a vet or a cop when I grew up, not a writer
because I already was a writer in my young mind. Not being a writer would have been like not being a woman - it’s how I was made. I do it because I don’t know how not to do it and because even if I learned how not to write, I’d never use the skill.
I’ll skip the how I do it and answer the why I keep going question. And I won’t lie. There are times when I struggle. Struggle to meet deadlines as much as I struggle to keep the house clean, the laundry done, and
dinner made. I fight with characters, with my husband and children, with myself because I have extremely high expectations and goals and I really work myself over when I ‘fail’ to accomplish a task.
In that, there is no one else nearly as good and making me feel like shit than myself. Being honest, I’m not some huge mega star in the e-book world. Of my fifteen novellas, I have five that would be considered best sellers. I have seven that aren’t quite bestsellers but have made my publisher’s money back for the publishing as well as a tidy profit. And I have three, which are, in my opinion, flops. My publisher disagrees with me on one of those three, since the book broke even and turned a small profit, but I think its sales sucked. I’ve made close to ten thousand dollars in the three years since I signed my first e-book contract. Not much, though it’s a hell of a lot more than many freelance writers make in their lifetime, but more than I could have made working my accounting job and paying out over seven hundred dollars a week in childcare expenses. Seriously though, I don’t keep going for the money.
I keep going despite the personal sacrifice because I get a high no drug can deliver every time I sit down at the computer and bring one of my fantasies to life. I keep going because I have some of the most fantastic, wonderful, delightfully wild fans that show me unbelievable support all the time. I keep going because quitting simply isn’t an option for me and thankfully an eighty-percent sell through to profit ratio is damn good and my publisher keeps wanting more books.
What’s it all worth to me will undoubtedly show you all my selfish side. Writing is priceless to me because it is the one thing in my life that is mine and mine alone. It’s what reminds me that I am mother, wife, and
Emma Ray. Without writing, in whatever form, I wouldn’t be able to be the spouse and mom I am because I’d be withdrawn, irritable, frustrated, and depressed. Everyone gets down, but if I couldn’t write, I’d be way worse than in the dumps.
When I write I’m not just Mrs. Garrett or Mommy. Being creative helps me maintain a small part of me that I was as a child, an adolescent, and a single woman. The me before hearth and home, diapers and bills. And I think that every woman should absolutely, positively, retain some bit of the woman they were before family. In that way, we don’t drop into the pitfalls that can come from living through our children and their achievements or from identifying ourselves so completely with our spouse that we don’t know how to go on without them, should that ever happen. In short, writing is worth as much to me as my children and my husband and my family, which is to say it’s worth everything.
Finally, the how do I do it. Simply put, I do it as I can. I steal time here and there. I stay up into the wee hours just before dawn, knowing full well I will have to be alert and functioning in too few minutes. I growl at my husband and tell him to take the kids out for a couple of hours. When I’m in deadline hell, the laundry slides a bit and the kids eat easy to prepare meals. Occasionally, I tell them all to leave me alone so I can work. And sometimes, I don’t write, though I’m dying to inside. Because working from home means that I can’t always work. People get sick, bad things happen, hell, life happens. And it’s okay if the clothes in the dryer don’t get folded tonight. It’s all right if I leave the dishes until morning. Neither my husband, nor I, will die if we can’t have ‘mommy and daddy’ time for the third night this week. On the flip side, it’s okay to go outside and play with the kids and not hit my word count goal for the day. It’s okay to watch television or read a book or play a game and not finish the chapter I started. I’ve found a balance that works for me and that’s my best advice to other writers in a similar situation. Find your balance, don’t sacrifice all of yourself, and the writing will flow.
This coming year, my youngest will join the school-going crowd and I will find myself alone for more than a couple of hours a day for the first time in my adult life. This year is the year when I finally put writing first and I see how far I can go. If I hit it big that will be fantastic. If I don’t hit it big that will be fantastic too. Because I’m doing something I love, surrounded by the people I love, and no matter the outcome, there’s not a single thing I’d change.
Except that damn ban on cloning. I could sure use another set of hands around here…
Topics: Left Behind and Loving It, Phenomena |
July 29th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I have got to say what great posts these are. As a mother of 2 kids (ages 7 and 8.5), trying to find time to write while on vacation has been pure hell. Between family weekends, soccer tournaments, my real job under my real name, being a mother, taking time to make sure my honey has my attention and other family obligations, you hit it on the nose Emma. I loved this post. Thanks for sharing!
Raine Delight
July 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
[...] Married mother of three seeking scientist for dinner [...]
July 29th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Fortunately for me, my children are teenagers, so it’’s a lot easier to balance things now than it was when they were infants and toddlers, although I do miss that…
July 29th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I told my husband last night I want a wife…. someone who’ll come in, clean my house, keep my kids entertained, get snot wiped all over her shirt, and change the dirty nappies whilst I write. He told me to keep dreaming. One day things will be so quiet around me I’ll be amazed, until then I write through noise/tantrums/fights/flus/pooey nappies/tiredness.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am
LOL, Natalie! I *so* know what you mean
I totally need a wife 
Thanks for having me by, Phenomena authors! I enjoyed writing the article very much and I’ve gotten a kick out of the other similar posts too.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Emma, I’m getting paranoid about the reading over my shoulder that’s probably going to happen soon. I think all writing will have to stop, especially on the laptop, until they’re safely tucked up in bed.
Though I could still hand write stuff. My handwriting is truly appalling and indecipherable.
And yep, my hand’s up for a wife too. Can she be a he and look *exactly * like Col. John Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis? Though I’d probably get no work done, at all then, lol
August 1st, 2008 at 4:30 am
This is a brilliant post, E. You’ve made me feel better. Thank you. Can I also put my hand up for a wife? Can mine look like David Tennant? Or Hugh Jackman?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Captain Jack from Torchwood…if you don’t mind.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Yay for Trophy Wives!
August 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
[...] — I hope this one comes back. I really enjoyed it and it was down when I wrote it. Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
ROFL! If we were going for trophy wives, I’d have to put my vote in for Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and David Boreanez *not the Angel David, but the Bones David, LOL*