"But You Have All Summer to Write..."

 That's what my well-meaning husband once told me, when I was whining (yes, whining, and I hate doing it as much as I hate to admit that I do it) about not having time to write during the school year.  To my logical spousal unit, there should be no creative angst involved.  During the school year, you teach.  During the summer, you write.  Easy as that.

Only I've got a feeling that any fellow writer out there is either laughing their seats off or clutching a handful of hair and making That Face.

No, dear husband.  That is NOT how it works.  NOT "easy as that." 

He does try.  I love him for that.  Right now, because I've had our wonderful son all day, he's done the bedtime routine so I could take the dogs to the dog park and then come home to write.  Only... I stayed a bit too long at the park, and now that I'm home, I've realized that I haven't updated my blog in a while, and I can't decide what to work on, anyway... two or three fanfics are running around in my head, and I'm feeling moody about not being able to go to the children's writer's conference I really wanted to go to this summer, and I just got a rejection letter (okay, it was a "sorry, you didn't win the contest" letter - close enough).  So here I am.  Whining about not writing, when I really could be doing so.

Sigh.

It's like this... bless Bill Amend, creator of the comic strip Foxtrot, for understanding how it REALLY works.  It starts out like this...

 Only with me, it's "just as soon as she checks her Facebook/ e-mail/ school e-mail/ blog..."  And soon, it becomes this...

I've waited all school year for this moment.  Only during the day, I've got my little guy to keep busy and occupied... I can send him to day care so I can do my "have to support the family" job, but I can't bring myself to send him to day care so I can write.  Why do I feel like a bad mom for even thinking about the latter, but not the former?  Probably because I know that this strip is all too true.

Finally, here I am.  Right now.  'Nuff said.