Ramblings on Writing, Newcomers, and the Inconvenience of Soccer

Well, it's Saturday morning and I left the soccer games early so I could have a cup of coffee in the warmth of Panera and write a post about how wonderful it is that it's the last day of soccer!  I would have stayed and watched except I'm hosting as many as 30 people for lunch tomorrow after church, and I still need to finish cleaning, order subs, make salad dressing, wash 10 pounds of grapes, clear off the school room table and make sure the kids vacuum, dust and clean the bathrooms.

It will be our last of three "Get to Know Light of Christ" luncheon meetings for nine newcomers who are exploring membership, and it's been so good to get to know these folks better!  We continue to be amazed and so grateful to God for how He keeps sending us the most interesting and delightful people, with gifts, talents and interests that complement our existing core in the neatest ways.

On the way here, though, I decided I didn't want to write back-to-back posts about soccer. Plus I think Papa Rooster is taking more photos this morning.

Instead, I wondered why I didn't write a post this past week.  I really wanted to.  I had ideas.  I even had time, I think.  I'm just not sure how to fit writing back in to my life.

Back in the days when I posted almost daily, I used to write in the mornings, before I woke up the kids to start our homeschooling day, or late at night, when keeping up my blog was my final and most enjoyable obligation of the day.

Now, my alarm rings at 7, and I'm busy until the two youngest get on the bus at 8:25.  Then the three oldest boys get up, and the day shifts into full speed as we figure out the day's schedule, I remind them of chores and responsibilities, and they enlist my help with errands and school.  By then, I'm in the "git 'er done" groove and my energy naturally turns to cleaning, straightening up, laundry, emails, phone calls, proofreading essays, explaining geometry, managing mail and paper...every day I cross three items off the to-do list and add five.  You know.

At night, Papa Rooster and I have a routine of the last year or so, of getting in bed by 9:30 or 10 and then watching a 45-minute show or two on his laptop.  It's cozy and comfortable to end our day that way together, and I miss it when he's traveling.  But I also miss my late-night reflection time that I used to get while he read himself to sleep and I typed away.  However, far too often I would stay up too late and pay for it the next day, so I appreciate the regular bedtime that our routine ensures.

But when to write?

I've always relied on our theater class and rehearsal schedule to give me a certain number of hours a week, but now I'm teaching a class, which takes away that slot, and my kids are doing soccer instead.  While theater rehearsals are 3-4 hours long, soccer practices are only 1-1.5 hours, and some nights they are staggered so that one starts and ends a half hour after the other, and the practice fields are on opposite sides of town.

Which brings me back to celebrating the last day of soccer, anyway!  Woo-hoo!

I suppose I just need to make appointments with myself, put them on my calendar and tell my family I'm unavailable for that hour or so.  What was it that that one famous author said?  Google tells me it was Somerset Maugham, who said, "I write only when inspiration strikes.  Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp."

Further questions arise, though.  How to put inspiration on hold when my allotted time is up? And where to focus my writing energies? Should I build my blog? Query magazines for articles? Dare to write a book proposal? If I'm going to spend more time on writing, I guess I want to make it count.

So I think about writing, instead of writing.  Guess I should just start writing.

Ahhh, thanks for listening.  I think that helped.

But my allotted time is up.  The grapes and the dust await!