Scattered
I've been feeling rather scattered of late. My mother-in-law came into town last week so she can be here if we need to run to the hospital in the middle of the night (so we don't have to wake my son up and cart him off to someone else's house). So that's great, but it makes it even more real that the baby could come any time. It makes it hard to focus on writing. Part of that is also that I don't have any big projects pending at the moment, so I keep waffling on what to do next--revise earlier stories? Write new short stories? Pick up the YA novel I played around with a bit last summer? Start a new novel or other large project?
I've done a little of each of these things without settling on any. And I think that inability to choose one comes to the same uncertainty. How much time will I be having once the baby is here to do any writing? Probably not much at first, even with my mother-in-law here. I was just going through an old notebook and found a bunch of the things I'd written when my son was little. I suspect I'll be doing more on paper for the first while, just as I did then. I frequently hear that going from 1 child to 2 is more of a shock and life-adjustment than going from 0 to 1 was. Other friends tell us no, it's much easier. But either way...it's that uncertainty again.
As recently as a few years ago, writing was a hobby, one I enjoyed but could have done without if I had to (not happily, necessarily, but I could have). Now it doesn't feel that way--when I go through a day without at least something writing-related (even if it's only market research or keeping up with what's going on in the field), I get very antsy. So I don't imagine there's any reason to worry that I'd suddenly stop writing. I just don't know what that writing will be looking like for the next few months.
I've been feeling rather scattered of late. My mother-in-law came into town last week so she can be here if we need to run to the hospital in the middle of the night (so we don't have to wake my son up and cart him off to someone else's house). So that's great, but it makes it even more real that the baby could come any time. It makes it hard to focus on writing. Part of that is also that I don't have any big projects pending at the moment, so I keep waffling on what to do next--revise earlier stories? Write new short stories? Pick up the YA novel I played around with a bit last summer? Start a new novel or other large project?
I've done a little of each of these things without settling on any. And I think that inability to choose one comes to the same uncertainty. How much time will I be having once the baby is here to do any writing? Probably not much at first, even with my mother-in-law here. I was just going through an old notebook and found a bunch of the things I'd written when my son was little. I suspect I'll be doing more on paper for the first while, just as I did then. I frequently hear that going from 1 child to 2 is more of a shock and life-adjustment than going from 0 to 1 was. Other friends tell us no, it's much easier. But either way...it's that uncertainty again.
As recently as a few years ago, writing was a hobby, one I enjoyed but could have done without if I had to (not happily, necessarily, but I could have). Now it doesn't feel that way--when I go through a day without at least something writing-related (even if it's only market research or keeping up with what's going on in the field), I get very antsy. So I don't imagine there's any reason to worry that I'd suddenly stop writing. I just don't know what that writing will be looking like for the next few months.
Comments
As long as you're scribbling a little something here and there when you can, I think you'll be fine. Maybe not as focused and productive as usual, but at least you'll keep the writing muscles warmed up until you adjust to the craziness.
When the baby's actually here...could be even harder to get anything done. But yeah, I'm sure I'll at least get some scribbles here and there.