John asked Michelle Cox:

Does your writing discipline and regimen impact your family interaction and availability?

Michelle Cox Hi, John!

What a great question. Yes, for sure it does. When I first began writing in 2012, it was just a hobby - a personal challenge to see if I could actually sit in a chair long enough and have enough mental concentration to write a novel. Now, seven books later, I find myself in the midst of running what is essentially a small business.

This is not something I expected or planned for. It just sort of happened, and now I find myself working two jobs - being a writer and still trying to be wife/mom/and household manager. I try to give equal time to both, but it's really difficult. I'm grateful that my kids are in their teens, so they are pretty self-sufficient, but they still need a lot of my time and attention. (Whoever said that the toddler years are the hardest is sadly mistaken! Just wait...)

Some writers say that writers block is their biggest challenge, but for me it's definitely balance. I'm constantly trying to balance not only my two "jobs," but also the duties within those two jobs. For example, I'd love to just sit and write all day, but, sadly, the actual time I get to spend creating during my "writing job" portion of the day is very small - about an hour.
The rest of my writing day is spent writing a blog, articles, my newsletter, creating ads, promoting and a hundred other marketing tasks. That requires a lot of balance.

But my household manager/mom job requires a lot of balance, too - do I clean the bathroom, weed the garden or just sit and play a game of cards with the kids?

I'm in a permanent state of balancing from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. But I suspect I'm not the only one.... :)

Hope this helps, John. How about for you?

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