LJ Chat, Day Two, Post Two

Originally posted 11/18/2011 at the Circlet Press Livejournal.

****

Back. Life as a writing mom is interesting. (That’s my boy in my icon today. Why, yes, I am a mom who shows off pictures of her kid). It was easier, back when he was smaller. Then it got harder, and now it’s easier again.

The hard part started when first, he decided he was fascinated with my laptop. That was solved by getting him one of those kiddie laptops that plays educational games (“Sweetie, that is your laptop. This is Mommy’s. You play with yours.)

The second part? That started when he taught himself to read. Which made writing sex scenes… interesting.  There was no place I could put the laptop where he couldn’t see the screen! Which meant that writing time was limited to naptimes (and he shortly thereafter pitched naps out the window), whenever we went to the toddler playplace that had WIFI, and after he went to sleep.

It was during this period that I wrote Princes. It took me a while. If I was lucky, I could get maybe 500 to 750 words a day out. 750 was a push, and I couldn’t write on weekends — that was family time.

Once he started school, I got three whole hours in the morning to write… if there was nothing else that needed to be done, like doctor’s appointments, or getting myself to the gym, or if he wasn’t home sick.

Now, he’s in school all day (yay!), and my days look something like this: Three days a week, I put him on the bus, go straight to the gym, work out for an hour, then come home, shower, and get on the computer. 750 words is my minimum daily word-count, and that can either take me a few hours, or all day, depending on what I am writing. The other two days a week (I know. I’m missing two days. I’m talking school days here.) I put him on the bus, go home, write until lunch time, then go do my volunteer shift at his school (most schools in the area, volunteering is optional. My son’s school has it as a requirement. Involved parents have kids who succeed, and this school is a NASA-certified sci-tech magnet school, and they want all of their students to succeed. I love his school.) I still write in the evenings.

Will I ever let him read my writing? I don’t honestly see how I can stop him, once he gets hold of it! The child is exactly like his parents — he LOVES the printed page (and the e-printed page). For now,  the adult books are on a shelf that he can’t reach…

But yesterday he started to climb….

After lunch, I’ll come back and talk about my other boy. Niall, the Raven Boy, the first one we meet in Princes of Air. You’ll meet him, and learn where he came from.