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…

With hindsight, writing with a small baby was easy. It didn’t feel like it at the time, with night feeds and the crying and the worry. However, small babies sleep a lot—and I know the rule that you have to rest when your baby does, and I did—but those few minutes when you’re awake and he’s making the really cute baby snores that you could listen to all day, you grab your chance. I used to sit up in my bed and scribble in a notebook while he was in his Moses basket. Maybe I’d get an idea for a new story, attack a dreaded synopsis, or scribble down a few new lines of dialogue. Before my first son was one, I’d managed in about four months to write a 50 000 word short novel, by grabbing those few moments in the day when he was a sleep and I didn’t have to be.

My first son as a toddler has a slightly different story to most people’s, as he’s special needs. He was a very quiet boy who couldn’t talk or understand language in return and was reluctant to engage in social interaction, though he did like me to read to him. So he’d sit on my knee and I’d read him books…sometimes the same one four or five times, before we moved onto the next one. I can still recite Whiff – the Beautiful Big Fat Smelly Warthog from memory.

Again when he was asleep, I’d grab my chance to write. Or if something engaged him, like bashing on his toy piano, I scribbled.

I was getting more serious about my writing. Any chance I got, I wrote. I had to.
By the time I was pregnant with Monster Number Two, I had another 50 000 word short novel and had sent out the polished partial. I got a request for a full on this one…however, I’d sent the partial without completely finishing the story. Big mistake. Huge. Massive. In fact, almost as massive as me.

I asked my mother for help. She came around for a few hours each day to play with Monster Number One while I finished my book. Which saw me at eight months pregnant, lying on my bed like a beached whale, scribbling in a notebook. Getting behind my desk with my bump was almost impossible and my arms were at full stretch. But in a fortnight I had it finished and out the door. On the day I went into labour, I made sure my mother, who was looking after Monster Number One, knew that there could be a call from a publisher. She had to tell them I was a little busy…

Okay, I could dream. The call didn’t come, but I was to be prepared.

Monster Number One was old enough to go to nursery a few mornings a week and luckily Monster Number Two slept in the mornings, so I had my writing time back. I bashed out a 1000 words at the kitchen table while Number Two slept and before I had to pick up Number One from the nursery a few streets away.

I got a 100 000 word novel written in six months this way.

Thinking about it, ‘Sleeping children helped me write’ should be the title of this piece. When they were sleeping, I didn’t have to join in the singing and dancing on Cbeebies (the BBC’s channel for the under 5’s), crawl around the floor being a horse or build Lego castles.

My monsters are older now and don’t sleep during the day. I write at night, usually after eight when they’ve gone to bed. I play and chat with them.  Monster Number One’s language as come on. He’s still behind and becomes very frustrated and angry at times, so he needs a lot of attention.  And I also discuss the merits of different Doctor Who monsters. A lot

Both of them love Doctor Who, Monster Number Two especially, and he talks about it endlessly. Okay, it’s completely my fault. But David Tennant and John Simm? I suffer through watching the DVDs of the Master…

I still scribble when I get the chance. I’ve written vampire love scenes as I join in a game of delivering milk to the end of the universe in our time travelling milk float (ie the sofa in the play room) with Monster Number Two and his five invisible guinea pigs. I’ve written on my Dana in a soft play centre, trying not to let passers by read the screen as I’m inevitably writing sex when I’m there. I sometimes even scribble in the schoolyard as I’m waiting to pick up Monster Number One from school. The small spiral notebook and pen is my best friend, after all.

I think what I’m basically saying is that if you have to look after small children, seize the chance to write any time you can. Ideas, a few lines of dialogue, character motivation, write them down, because if you’re like me, zombie children ate your brain and you forget something as soon as you’ve thought it. Then when you have a longer stretch of time, read through, add to your notes or type them up. Write after they’ve gone to bed…and for the people who can do it (I’m not one of them, lol) write before the monsters get up.

Writing, and my realised dream of becoming an author, means I have to fit it into my life anyway I can. I’m making the most of it. Soon, with them both at school, I’m beginning the new challenge of writing, children and a full time other job.

Wish me luck

Kim Knox

Stay tuned for a fun time! It launches on Monday, July 28th.

Dawn Montgomery

http://www.dawnmontgomery.com/blog

Check it out here.

Anyway…I write under two names – Kim Knox & Kim Rees.  

As Kim Knox, I write science fiction and fantasy with a romantic twist – and usually a lot of fighting from heroines, who can seriously kick an arse or two.  Often it’s the hero’s *grin*

As Kim Rees I write contemporaries with darkly attractive heroes and more emotion than you can shake a stick at.  These are normally set in the UK as I’m British.  My spelling has probably given me away, hasn’t it? lol

That’s all from me for the minute.  I have to rush back to an angry hero trapped in a cellar with the heroine *grin*