Who am I? This question is beginning to nag at me lately. I am Catherine Green. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, and an author.
This last one has been sorely neglected recently in my daily schedule. My life has become a chaotic cycle of breastfeeding, changing nappies, bathing and washing children, preparing food for children, feeding them, cleaning up behind them, and everything else that comes of being a mother and housewife.
Time to Rediscover the Author
It is time to reignite my author passion. I have ideas for dozens of stories, both novels and shorts, scribbled in diaries that I keep staring at, but never do anything about. I joined Camp NaNoWriMo this month as a way of getting back into the writing habit. It worked very slowly for about two weeks, but then my domestic life overtook everything again. How do I balance being with my children 24/7 with being an author?
The problem is that I am not simply an author. It isn’t just about writing the stories. If I want to be recognised, if I want to sell books, if I want to earn a decent wage as an author, then I have to be a whole lot else besides. I have to be an entrepreneur, a business woman, a marketing professional, a social media expert, and a whole host of other titles that I can’t even contemplate in my current tired state of mind.
Who are you?
Who are you? How do you define yourself and your life? I am interested to hear other people’s stories, and how all of our lives overlap and run parallel in so many ways… Have a great week everyone!
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SpookyMrsGreen 
Great Blog, and I enjoyed the read.
Thanks Shirley.
Hi Catherine, – as a fellow-author I have to say that you have already made a very good start as a writer, businesswoman, social media expert etc. All these extra tasks used to be taken up by commercial publishing houses, decades ago sadly, and writers could concentrate on writing. However, despite the present-day realities of being an “indie” author, I must say our prime task is to write as well as we can, develop our own voices, and be true to ourselves as writers… that is the most important thing, that will outlast all the other pressures upon us.
Hi Sheila, thank you for the encouragement and yes, you are right, we must work on the core of our craft if we are to succeed with the rest.
It’s hard being a slash. That’s what I call people like us: wife/mother/writer/etc. After a time it starts to feel as though you really have been slashed into all these little pieces that have to fit perfectly together. This summer has been a rude awakening for my writer slash because my daughter is home, but it’s forced me to be creative with my mother slash. I even have my daughter writing stories!
I think all we can do is practice what one of my music teachers used to call “rotational neglect”. You pick the one thing that can take a back seat, but make sure you only ignore it for a short period of time. Of course the only way you can rotate your kids is by making sure someone else is watching them, but it’s the only solution I’ve come up with so far. Don’t beat yourself up…the fact that you find time for blogging still feeds your writer slash.
“Rotational neglect” – I like that term! I think I will adopt it. For now my rotation is on the children, but when I can find suitable cover for their care I will rotate towards my writing. Thanks for stopping by!