To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1
I can not do everything all at once, no matter how much I might like to. I only have space for two or three large things in my life at one time. Howard and the kids always get first priority. Housekeeping, Schlock work, and writing rotate through the large slots I have left. Other smaller things fit into the gaps between the big ones. Lately, it has been all I could do to get the Schlock work done while still meeting the emotional/physical needs of my family. I can’t berate myself for this because I was honestly working at capacity. But I am left with stories I haven’t touched in three weeks and a house in dire need of organization.
I’ve always worked under the theory that if I put the most important things first, then I’ll be satisfied with myself. I believe this to be true. But how do I decide what is most important? How do I decide if it is the right season for a particular pursuit? And what if the thing I want the most, is less important than the other things?
Howard and the kids come first. Always. If they need me everything else gets dropped.
The work I do on the Schlock books is critical. The books would not get mailed if I did not handle it. This most recent book would not exist at all if I had not stepped in to do some of the layout work. For the next book I’ll be doing all of the layout work. Since the books pay our bills, this work is really important. Usually there are gaps in the busy times for book work, but we need to put out the next book fast. We’re hoping to have it out in February. This means that for the next several months I’ll be working on schlock stuff daily. I enjoy working on Schlock. I love being able to make a tangible contribution to maintaining this lifestyle that we love. But all the work on Schlock books necessarily displaces other things and for the next few months it is high priority.
Housework seems like it can be neglected, that it doesn’t have to be a high priority. Unfortunately neglecting the housework quickly results in chaos. When our house is a mess we are all more cranky and less able to do other things. Keeping the house clean enables everything else and so I have to get it done. What I haven’t been doing well, is leveraging the kids against this task. This isn’t just my job, this belongs to us all. I just need to figure out how to get them to help with a minimum energy expenditure from me.
In the end, this post is really about the lack of writing in my life lately. I’ve been blogging, but not writing fiction. I haven’t been writing because when I look logically at the things which I need to do, writing gets pushed so low on the importance scale that there is no time left for it. After all, my writing does not contribute to the running of the household. In fact usually the writing is done at the expense of something else which does directly contribute. I have so many things in my life, that logic tells me I should put the writing on hold for awhile longer. It can wait. …Only I don’t want it to wait. It is the one thing in my life that is truly mine. My writing is not important to the household, but it is important to me. It grieves me to see it languish.
As a member of the household, my dreams and goals and aspirations should have importance. As the household manager I know that my things are the easiest to interrupt or put on hold. My desire to write is constantly weighed against the needs of Howard and the kids. (They always come first, remember.) So when I have a space of time, I have to decide whether dishes or writing is more important. I am going to have few spaces in the next 6 months. I wonder if I will get any writing done at all. I want to. I want to send my words out where they can affect the lives of others. But I am left wondering how my words can possibly be good enough to do that, when they are consistently labelled as less important than doing the dishes.
(Note: All the devaluation of my writing is happening inside my own head. Howard and the kids all believe in it and support it fully.)
For every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Am I trying to make it the season for me to be an author when it is not so? Is writing fiction even the correct use for the gifts I have been given? I’ve been given so much. The only way to repay that, is to do what I can to make the world a better place. Am I going about it the way that I should be? Or perhaps I’m all at sea because I am supposed to be writing and I haven’t been. I like that answer. I want that one to be true. But I am cautious to accept it, precisely because my longing for it to be true is so strong.
Times and Seasons
Ebbs and Flows
I’ve had fallow months before, times when I did not write. Usually they are followed by a burst of creative energy where the writing pushes other things aside. I think I’m about due for that. Then all this fretting will be for naught.