July 11, 2011

Hurrumph: Parents of older children who say ‘It just gets harder.’

I was chatting with another mother about Squeezing It All In. We agreed that it was hard to do.

‘Still,’ I said, ‘It’s been much better since Middlest started nursery, so I’m sure things will get easier.’

Mother-of-Older-Children said ‘Oh, it doesn’t get easier.’

‘Your children are 10 and 8,’ I said trying not to sound too incredulous. ‘That must be very different from having children of 5, 3 and 1.’

‘Oh, there’s all their activities, all the drop-offs, all the homework. I spend hours every week just sitting around in the car waiting for them. Really, I think you’ve probably got it easiest just now.’

‘Really?’ I said, as a polite alternative to picking up the heavily-buttered scone she was eating and ramming it down her throat.

Now, I am can quite understand that different challenges occur as children grow up, BUT:

  1. older children can help out – a bit
  2. older children can be reasoned with – a bit
  3. older children can occupy themselves – a bit – probably for more than a minute
  4. older children are unlikely to pull out the entire contents of the laundry cupboard several times a day or put all your sanitary supplies in the lavatory while you do the tiniest little edit to a blog post

Right now, hanging around in the car with my notepad and pen for 45 WHOLE MINUTES (that’s three-quarters of a flaming hour!) ALONE while one of the Little Darlings have a tennis or violin lesson sounds like heaven to me.

Hurrumph.

END NOTE
There are only a few things in life which make me grumpy; and it is going to give me no end of pleasure some small satisfaction to devote the occasional post to these topics.

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Filed under Parent stuff

July 4, 2011

Go the f**k to sleep – free audio version

I know, I’m a bit behind the times and all the hype about Adam Mansbach’s book Go the F**k to Sleep has been and gone, but did you know you can download a free audio version, read by Samuel L Jackson?

The truth of parenting (at least of young children) is that you can only really get anything done when the little dears are asleep or being looked after by a beneficent grandparent or spouse, so this had me chuckling, albeit in a mildly deranged way.

You do have to sign up for an account at Audible to get this – it wasn’t too nuisancy; if you’re already an Amazon customer already, you can just use the same log in.

Then it’s just a matter of downloading and dragging the file into iTunes. I say ‘just a matter’ but I have to admit, it did take me a while to locate the file in iTunes. I kept scrolling up and down the music library like a demented librarian. And then repeatedly going back to the ‘downloads’ folder to check if ‘Go’ really does start with ‘G’. (It does).

Just as I was about to give up hope, I noticed a tiny folder (microscopic, in fact), cunningly entitled ‘Books’.

Quite bizarrely, that’s where it was.

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June 25, 2011

Supreme happiness…

…reading and sauntering and dozing and lounging, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness. David Hume

 

I couldn’t agree more, Mr Hume. Only trouble is, as parents, this sort of time is generally in incredibly short supply. We need a certain amount of processing time – reading, sauntering, dozing and lounging time –  to mulch all those random thoughts.

5 things that work for me:

  1. Doing something creative with the children
    Make some playdough. Make some cakes. Get out the face paints. Make a collage. Get out any bells or whistles or drums and have a music session. Dress up. Put a duvet cover over the kitchen table and pretend it’s a cave.
  2. Squeezing in 5-10 minutes during the day
    Try keeping a notepad in the kitchen and jotting down some random thoughts or ideas. Hard to concentrate on editing or re-writing but I’m quite happy to make a few mindmaps or jot ideas down quickly.
  3. Doing something different
    Try sketching something and set yourself a 5 minute deadline. I’m not that great at sketching but I like doing it and for some reason, I get less frustrated when it goes wrong or I’m interrupted.
  4. Getting up early
    Try getting up an hour earlier – brutal but it works. Works best for me when I have a clear idea of what I’m going to do write beforehand. Otherwise I’m all too easily sidetracked by that online grocery order.
  5. Walking
    When you do have some time off alone, try walking instead of taking the bus or car. There is something good about feeling the rhythm of your feet, about breathing in fresh air, about letting the ideas roll around in your head.

Clearly, none of these come close to lounging or dozing or even sauntering, but you know what? They’re still pretty good.

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Filed under Cunning strategies

June 19, 2011

Nicola Morgan’s ‘Write to Be Published’

Thursday night saw me heading out at 6pm; a heady experience for someone who is normally Doing Bathtime at that time. Destination: Blackwell’s, Edinburgh; Purpose: to hear Nicola Morgan speak about her latest book. And have some free wine.

I’ve pretty much inhaled the book already; it shines a light on areas of publishing that are impossible to know unless you work in the industry and it’s written in a clear, accessible style. The book grew out of NM’s very successful blog, Help! I need a publisher! which is well-worth checking out. Being slightly (ahem) addicted to books about writing, I feel well-qualified to say that this one is definitely worth buying.

As well as information on what publishers actually want (very interesting reading), I liked the practical writing advice. For example, NM’s version of the character questionnaire. You’ve probably come across these in writing books – What does your character eat for breakfast? What star sign are they? Do they own a car, if so, what type? Etc etc etc ad nauseam). I generally feel either irritated or faintly overwhelmed by these questionnaires, but this one is great, particularly as the author provides a reason for why each question is helpful. Really, it’s all excellent stuff.

The book finishes with NM’s personal story of how she came to be published (now with over 90 books to her name) after, as she puts it, ‘twenty-one years of failure to have a novel published.’ Its a generous gift, this personal story, because I suspect that nearly everyone who writes and wants to be published, has had their own dark night of the soul.

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Filed under Books on writing, Events

June 14, 2011

Cunning strategies for writing

One of my very favourite strategies is to use a timer. In fact, I’m using one right now. Why? Because it focuses my mind on getting this post written, because it reminds me that a scant ten minutes can be put to good use, because it reminds me of one of my favourite Great Truths of Writing.

Timers are great for busy parents who are struggling to find the time to get any creative work done. Here are some useful resources:

Apimac
Nifty freeware for mac. You can choose your alarm sound and add a text alert of your own choosing. Highly recommended. I just wish it would tick…

Pomodoro Technique
Another great resource to check out is the Pomodoro Technique – it’s basically a way of chunking your time into short (25 minute) segments and usi.

Sounds too simple to work but it does for me.

I did check the very comprehensive accompanying book out (very generously free to download). I whiled away Too Much Time before realising that it was over-complicating things (for my purposes, anyway) and that I should do something useful. Like putting a timer on and doing some Actual Writing.

There is now an app for iphone – please make one for regular macs too!

A mechanical kitchen timer
There is something about the sound of seconds ticking away that helps keep fingers to keyboard or pen to paper. My little cheap egg-shaped one has a very loud ring, so not ideal for early morning writing next door to the baby’s room.

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Filed under Cunning strategies, Mac stuff

June 10, 2011

A Great Truth of Writing

I had such a lot of fun working on the design of my blog. I browsed lots of wordpress themes and finally settled on my (ahem) original choice. I cruised quirky stock photography (I’m embarrassed to state the exact number of minutes. Or hours.) I messed around with the style sheets, softening the colours, choosing the exact red. I downloaded more 3D fonts than you can shake a stick at.

In fact, I had so much fun that I conveniently forgot one of my Great Truths of Writing. I really should have this tattooed on my forehead… Anything that is not actually writing is… (drum roll) Not Writing.

Now, I’m not saying that walking, doodling, tweaking style sheets, knitting, staring into space, eating chocolate milk digestives or clearing out cupboards don’t have their place in the creative process; quite clearly they do.

But what I am saying is that in the end, there is only the page and the words you have put on it.

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Filed under Cunning strategies, Writing

June 5, 2011

Write Now! University of Strathclyde, 3 June 2011

I subscribe to the Writer’s Compass E-Bulletin (a very handy events listing of writerly goings on in the UK) and often mentally bemoan the fact that there are not enough events Up Here (by which I mean Scotland) so I was delighted to find out that a writing conference was taking place ‘next door’, in Glasgow.

A whole day of conferencing can sometimes be a bit hardgoing but the line-up was excellent. The organisation was extremely efficient by any standards, but particularly impressive as it was organised by students on the Strathclyde’s Masters programme who I guess have got quite a lot of other things on just now, like writing. It was also featured top-notch home-baking. Yes, you read that correctly. I don’t go to many conferences these days, but I have been to enough to know that this is something to get quite excited about. I did my best to make a wide-ranging sample; whoever made the cheese scones and the bakewell tart deserves a knighthood. Oh and the tablet!

There was more to the day than the ridiculously good home-baking; highlights included Louise Welsh’s keynote opening, in which she gave her answer to THAT question: ‘Can creative writing be taught?’, Jamie Jauncey’s inspiring talk about using creativity in business writing and Jac Cattaneo on psychogeography and fiction.

Was is worth travelling all the way from Edinburgh for and would I go next year? Oh yes indeed to both.

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Filed under Events