We’ve all heard the phrase, “Life is a moving target.” If
nothing else, it’s been made pretty famous by a store of a certain name. I
wish, though, that it wasn’t moving so fast. I wish it would stop, especially
when it comes to my writing.
For a brief time, I thought I had a handle on this whole
writing lifestyle. Then my oldest daughter was born five years ago today and
she threw my life on its head.
I eventually found a new, though slightly more difficult
rhythm. (I’m not a morning person, so those 5 a.m. writing sessions were a real
bear.) After a matter of a few months, a combination of morning sickness and
other ill health again threw things off-kilter. I can’t say I’ll never recover,
but I haven’t yet.
I also can’t say I haven’t written anything. As editor of a
weekly paper, I routinely write interviews and other features. As a writer,
though, my heart and soul have always belonged to fiction. I haven’t touched
that since months before the birth of my 21-month-old son. That’s too long.
I wouldn’t trade my children for anything, not even Stephen
King’s career. Now, as I write this post, though, I try to block out the movie
my five-year-old is watching (The Sword in the Stone if anyone’s interested)…and
my toddler’s insistent (try throwing an empty bowl at my head) request for a
fifth Cutie…and my two-month-old’s increasingly strident cries. I try to focus
and wonder when the target will quit moving. Then I have to face the fact that
it never will.
The target will never stop moving. Life will never be
perfect. The kids will grow up and something else will happen to take my
attention. So, if I want to be a writer, I have to become a sharpshooter and
try to hit that target no matter how fast it’s moving or how much it zigzags. I
just have to figure out how.
How do you write when your life is a moving target?
Some of the things that keep my life a moving target.
