Can't Beat 'Em,? Have Them Join You!

         

                   IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM - HAVE THEM JOIN YOU!

What is guaranteed to happen each and every time you are on the phone? One or all of your children need you at that very moment to solve some earth shattering dilemma that will be the downfall of mankind if it is not dealt with in the very next minute. This happened so often with my children that it came to the point when I truly needed their attention (and could not pull them away from their computers or TV), I would simply pick up the phone, with no intention of using the device as it was designed to be used, but as a way to summon them. It never failed, the minute the phone was in hand they would be at my side in full attention.

Now this phenomenon does not solely happen with the phone.  It also occurs when a parent is a writer. The click of the laptop lid opening is enough to have even the slightest catastrophe brought to my immediate attention before there is a death with the funeral arrangements taking place of my hallowed time reserved for writing.  I’ve tried every way suggested on the subject of incorporating motherhood and writing into the same life. The important point is there needs to be a partnership between the family and writing.

Listening to my children everyday on the drive home from school fills me with lots of ideas for upcoming story lines.  One day light bulbs went off in all levels of wattages and I realized that my four children were a huge source of material, and from this realization evolved my partnership with children and my writing.  Now, I don’t push them away during my literary time, I incorporate these built-in wealthy pieces of information into my stories.

In preparing for this daily exercise, I proof read previous writing and list words that I use “too much” of.  If I am stuck on a point in a story I copy out the last paragraph. Then at my scheduled writing time I call the crew together and give them exercises.  We play scrabble and each has a scrabble dictionary, so I divvy up my word list of “too often used“ and have each crew member find me as many different words or phrases that mean the same as the word on the list. Now on to my writing block. We sit in a circle with a small taping device.  I read the paragraph and then each person on the right adds a sentence or idea. We do this until we run out of ideas.  It is so much fun and it can get so crazy depending what everyone comes up with. Last, I have the kids tell me about parties they go to, playing at the park, visiting friends for sleep-overs, and school situations.  These morsels are filed and used as starting ideas or character builders or situational descriptions in future writing. (I also keep “in-the-know” about their lives)

Once we’ve completed these exercises, my children are content to go back to what they were doing and leave me to write.  That is until the phone rings.