Who Stole My Writing Time?

 

Confession: the last time I sat down to write a bunch of words in a row, with the intention of creating sentences to form a story, was the last day of my little girl's school. Blog posts, sure. Interviews, yup. Emails, oh yeah. I’ve even sketched out some story ideas. But actually carving out three or four hours solely devoted to writing seems like ancient history – and an unimaginable luxury.

And I only have one kid, and only part-time at that! (She’s my stepdaughter, who lives with us exactly half the time.) How do mothers of two, three or four kids do it? I know they do, I’ve heard the stories. They make me feel like a loser.

I try, I swear I do. I bring my laptop everywhere in the hopes of snagging some minutes to write. I had high hopes for the pool. Surely she could play in the pool with her friend while I watched/wrote in the stands? Sadly, no. It turned out her friend doesn’t know how to swim, so I was required to be in the pool the entire time, a watchful arm’s length away from her.

Okay, so when my stepdaughter's with us it’s difficult to find writing time. But what about when she isn’t? That’s when everything else seems to take over. Planting the garden. Moving into the new kitchen. Making dinner for my husband’s clan of brothers who are here to work for a few weeks. Going fishing. Our summer days seem to last forever here in Alaska, and yet there never seems to be enough time. It makes no sense that the sun rises at 3:30AM  and goes down at 11:30PM and yet I’m always behind on everything.

These days, unless I have a deadline – like, for instance, this blog post HAS to go up tomorrow – NOTHING gets done. Even emails seem to go days without an answer. I swear, my computer might be more useful as a planter at this point.  Forget word count ... grow flowers!

Where did my writing time go? It makes no sense, unless you consider some kind of time-warp black hole theory. Maybe the writing time/space continuum has been altered by the end of the school year and beginning of summer, so every attempt to write gets thwarted by powerful universal forces beyond my control. I love summer, I swear I do. I don’t want winter to come any time soon. But those long snowy nights snuggled up with my computer are acquiring a nostalgic glow in my memory.

If you have kids, how do you get anything done when school’s out? Is my only hope for September to roll around?

Summer with the Starfish

Would you like to see a slideshow from my vacation? I knew you would!!

I just finished attending RWA in NYC, and couldn't leave the East Coast without visiting my family in Maine. These photos are from an island I've been coming to since I was little. In fact, my father proposed to my mother on this island. Later, they bought a teeny-weeny little cottage here along with two friends of theirs. And that's how I got to spend chunks of the summer here when I was young and had no responsibilities.

I ran around barefoot all summer on the gravel road (there's only one, which circles the island), fished off the dock, hurled myself into the freezing cold water, and ate blueberry popsicles. It made for a perfectly idyllic summer. My brother lives here year-round, so now I get to watch my niece and nephew enjoy the same kind of dreamy, lost-in-time summers scented with wild roses, raspberry bushes, and diesel fumes.

It's a fishing island, mostly lobster. I've known the lobsterman in this photo since I was nine.

It's also home to "summer families," a tradition handed down from one generation to the next. Families have been coming to this tiny speck in the middle of Casco Bay since the 1800's.

They've waited at the dock for the ferry bringing their friends, family and groceries. The same scene has been repeated over and over again, year after year, and for a few days each summer I'm lucky enough to be a part of it.

I love this place more than I can ever express. If you blindfolded me and flew me around the world, then dropped me on this island, I would know it instantly, just from the smell: sun and seaweed and roses and tar. Some things have changed. When we first came here, the island had only one phone -- the pay phone at the dock. We washed our clothes by hand on a washboard. We heated our water on the stove. We burned our trash on the rocks. And not because I'm that old -- the island was just that backwards.

Now there's Internet and trash collection and "activities" for the kids. Even though I miss the days when my activities consisted of rescuing stranded starfish and making treasure maps in the sand, I still love every minute I get to spend here. I know I'm biased, but I truly believe this must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Here are a couple more photos to prove my case!

Thanks for indulging me and watching my slideshow!