Being a full-time mother who writes can be quite a challenge. First of all, you DON’T have time to write. You can write in your spare time, of course. But when you spend the whole day cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, picking up your little girl from school, watching your other little girl climbing everything in her way and taking care of her not to fall, running between ballet and art classes, doing homework with your older one (which sometimes takes five hours!!!), shopping… What was I saying? Oh, yeah! You DON’T have spare time.
Sure, you can write at night, when they are sleeping. But most of the time, after a quick shower (your most relaxing moment of the day), you end up sleeping the moment you sit down, with your laptop in your arms.
You can also write when they are playing. But the moment you open your laptop, your one and a half year old little girl suddenly wants to watch her favorite cartoons and videos. On YOUR laptop. And believe me, watching a video with a child unfolding tens of surprise chocolate eggs might take a while. Then, after she is bored of watching, you think you can have your laptop back. Big mistake! First you have to clean the play dough and candies off the keyboard. Then your seven year old one wants a snack. And your writing is postponed. Again.
You may think you can surely write on paper. It has been successfully done hundreds of years ago. But the soon you grab the pen and paper, your little one has an urge for an artistic moment. And she starts coloring your single line with her pencils. And you can’t stop your child from being creative, can you?
And now comes the big question: when do mothers write? The answer is simple: whenever they can. Napkins, post-its on the fridge, mobile phones (thank God for smart phones!) are great for writing down ides, new sub-plots, or new characters. I even found out about mothers blogging in the bathrooms, with children crying and threatening to break the bathroom’s door. I haven’t reached that level yet.
But the actually writing, at least in my case, needs to be done properly. For me, writing is a creative process. A selfish act. I need to be in the mood for writing, without anyone or anything disturbing me. Therefore, my best moments for writing are holidays and school breaks, when the girls are visiting their grandparents. That means I haven’t been writing for quite a while, I know.  For the moment, I can’t say I’m following a writing schedule.  I now see writing as a sweet escape, my lovely oasis, with a warm wind blowing through my hair and birds singing softly in my ear, and stars sparkling bright above me… That’s how I feel when I’m writing. Free, careless, my head in the clouds.
As for writing habits, it all has to be clean, neat and tidy around me. But that’s a different story…