Family life, writing and love for my Kindle

Family life and school holidays

Did I achieve everything that I wanted to? No, I didn’t. The weather was not great, family life and laziness took over. Trying to motivate myself to do things. Hard when the children are quietly playing on their gadgets and daddy is sat with his feet up.

We went to the town one day. Walking via the Barbers, I got stressed with the children, but we did get some fresh air and a cookie. I think the children enjoyed themselves more than I did, however they did not appreciate helping with the supermarket shopping on the walk back. If I can I will usually leave the car at home.

We had some friends around one day which was lovely. Though the girls found fun with throwing the care bears down the stairs. I’m really not sure why.

Note: I started writing this post weeks ago, and life took the time away from me to finish it.

My reading

I’m having a competition with myself to see how many books I can read this year. So far, I have read just eleven. In February, I read,
1. Ritu Bhathal’s – Marriage Unarranged, her debut novel. The book follows the story of Aasha. Her broken engagement and her adventure in India with her best friend, brothers and a new friend. Ritu sets the scene in detail and I was pulled in.

2. Debra Purdy Kong’s- The Blade man. Part six of Debra’s Casey Holland books. If you haven’t read Casey Holland yet, why not? I read the first one and I kept on reading.

3. Debra Purdy Kong’s, Fatal Encryption with Alex Bellamy. One of Debra’s earlier books.  I really enjoyed it.

4. Ruth Heald’s, Two Psychological thrillers – The mothers mistake – the life of Claire, Matt, their new baby and Matt’s mum.

5. And – The woman upstairs –The life of Katie and her twins.

6. I’m currently reading – Susan Lewis – Home Truths –it is causing me to have late nights.

All these books I struggled to put down, so I highly recommend them all.

My Kindle and books

I am that person walking with her nose pointing towards her Kindle. There have been books this month that I have given up on within the first few pages. I’m asking myself why, and trying to work out what these writers above do so well that keeps me turning the pages. When my book is finally written and published, I don’t want it to be one that is deleted from a Kindle or gathering dust by a bed.

However, Imajica – Clive Barker, is right now gathering dust as it’s taking me a while to get into it.

With BookBub and Amazon adverts on Facebook showing me free or 99p books, Imajica is going to be more dusty before I finish it. I have a lovely pile of books waiting to be read on my Kindle and by my bed.

What are you reading at the moment? How big is your waiting to be read pile?

My writing

I finally looked again at my time warp novel. I concluded that it needs re-writing. I’m wondering how many times I will rewrite it before I can say it’s finished. I still haven’t worked out the end. I’ve realised that it was a mistake taking a break in October. I should have kept writing regardless of word count until I had written the words ‘The End’.

With writing two blogs, reading, and family life, I’m often exhausted at the end of the day. Its been too tempting to not turn on my laptop. I need to get back into the habit of writing every night. It doesn’t matter if it’s one hundred words or one thousand I have to do it.

The demand to submit work to different places is real. I know that I need to make more of an effort to write, whether it’s a short story or my novel. I need to do this in addition to my blogs.

Being a writer

If any writer ever tells you that writing is easy, they are lying.

The demands we put on ourselves are high. Many of us work, many full time. I balance my writing alongside a busy and active family life and my job.

After a long exhausting day yesterday, I finally sat down at 9pm. Tablet on my lap to try and do work on my blogs. 9.15pm, my daughter appears to tell me her bed is wet. I was upset with her and told her to sleep the other end. On getting up and investigating, she had thrown water over her duvet because she no longer wanted ‘Hello Kitty’ on her bed, she wanted the ‘Care bears’. At that moment she was not my favourite little person. Why then? Why just as I had sat down? Anyway, so I changed it and said goodnight to her. Needless to say, I didn’t achieve much.

As writers we can only do what our lives allow. Many wait until their children are grown up. Working around them is really not easy.

Recommendations

1. Write when you can and read when you can. I love my Kindle and will walk to school reading it.
2. Try not to get too upset when things don’t go according to plan. Like when your six year old decides she wants her duvet changed at 9pm.  Family life is busy and often stressful.
3. Remember to take time to breathe and look after yourself.
4. Remember writing is hard work. This is why so many writers set up accountability groups to motivate each other to keep writing.

Today

All too soon I will be walking down the road reading my Kindle back to school. My eight year old has been learning the guitar, so he has that to practice tonight.

I have a nice book on writing a novel that I need to read, but Susan Lewis is being a time stealer. I need to know what happens next in ‘Home Truths’. How do you get round this? I think I need to stay away from Facebook and BookBub.

We have World Book Day on Friday.  My children are going to be ‘Charlie Bucket’ and ‘Veruca Salt’.  Their clothes will not be too accurate and we are borrowing a squirrel.   It is the taking part that counts.  This afternoon we need to make two ‘Wonka Golden Tickets’.

I’m now going to go and find some food and the children.   Have your children done World Book day? or are they doing it? Who are they dressing up as?

Family life and being busy never ends!

For more see, Life stress, my novel and my writing