No Time to Think about Writing

Posted by Jennifer Jensen Apr 1, 2008

I’ve been very smug, writing articles and blogs about making time to write, setting priorities, and even writing when sick or on vacation. I’ve done it. I know it’s possible, even if it takes determination.

It’s different now.

We’re moving from the U.S. to Ireland in three short months. The house needs to be on the market by the end of April, so I’m stripping wallpaper, finishing trim projects and painting every wall in sight. I’m still helping with homework, scholarship essays, and Eagle Scout deadlines; making author visits to schools and meeting other grant requirements; sorting through thirty years of junk, inventorying what we’re taking and what’s going into storage, and selling the rest; planning a house-hunting trip, making arrangements for college kids, and trying to find homes for the cats. Plus my class.

I’m getting very resentful of the fact that while I love my weekly fiction workshop, it’s just an island in the midst of the hurricane. I can let go of marketing and revisions on other things I have written, and my Suite101 articles keep me in the writing world, but I have no room in my mind to think about stories and characters, and I don’t like it!

Sometimes life events are so big that finding time to write or even think about writing becomes impossible. I’m trying to convince my inner self that it’s OK, but I’m not succeeding awfully well.