It seems in a short span of time many changes have come to me. Some, perhaps all, are my own fault - in one way or another. I often feel I have too little control over the changes and wish I could have nice long periods of time where everything just went smoothly and I could move peacefully along with my life. It seems that won't happen in my life, who knows, it might be boring. I'd like to give it a try anyway.
It seems since school for my four children has started (first week of September) that my writing time has vanished. I find I write best in the mornings when I am refreshed from a good nights rest. I thought to be able to write in the morning after dropping off my oldest, Willem, at seminary. That didn't happen as my third oldest, Liem, doesn't want to walk to the bus stop alone. It is good that I am getting more time to talk with each of my children one on one, but has been horrible for my writing. I thought to be able to commute using slug lines (instant carpools) and the subway which would have allowed me to write on a lap top for about two to three hours per day, including an hour or so in the morning. That didn't happen because by the time the bus comes for my second oldest, Adonis, it's already 7 AM and then I have to drop off Sharleen at day care. By that time the lot I would go to is full and there are no more people waiting to pick up passengers so they can go in the high occupancy vehicle lanes.
I hope this doesn't sound like I am complaining, just explaining how things are going for me. If I'm extremely best one of you who reads this will have a suggestion that will work for me on how to make time to write. I'm currently on the second draft of my story which goes very well when I actually sit down and work on it. In the evenings when I get home there is too much noise and/or I don't feel like writing and so I just sit on the computer and play games, the latest distraction there is Minecraft. Part of my problem these days after work is that I feel too tired to work on my story. Maybe that is a psychological change that I need to change again.
As for the story itself, I've made some fundamental changes that tighten it up and make it flow better. Unfortunately, by writing a couple minor characters out of the story it leaves some trickle effect changes that I have to fix because they are no longer included in the story. Plus I managed to find a way to change a chapter I liked to make it fit better and help the story along instead of it getting cut from the story. I would have cut it if it came to that, but I think this works better. It too, is causing trickle effect changes in the beginning chapters of my story.
On a brighter note, Amanda is making good progress with the cover for my book. At first I was worried that my book would be ready for publication before the cover was ready which is why I found a cover artist earlier. Well, now I think she'll have the cover ready months before I have the novel ready, unless I can etch out of my schedule time to revise on a regular basis. Hasn't happened yet, but could happen any day now. It could be as simple as needing a goal just as I had goals until I finished the first draft. I did have other goals after that and they were working fine until my schedule got thrown out of whack by the start of school and adjustments to my commute schedule not working the way I had hoped.
For those who read this please share what has worked for you to make writing time when you have to manage a household (I'm single), children (I have custody of my four children ages 16 to 10.), full time job, and three hour commute. I seem to get many ideas of what to write and how to write it but draw a blank when figuring out when I can write.
