“Scwatch my back, mama.”

My two-almost-three-year old, Owen, has developed a taste for having his back scratched lately, and several–okay, at least a dozen–times a day he comes to me for a good fingernail rub. It’s hard to resist a curly-headed little boy with his shirt pulled up, so I usually give him a good scratch and then try to go on with my day.

Except that Owen is insatiable. I go in for a smooch and he covers me with kisses. I give him a hug and he clings to my neck for a half-hour. Give him a quick scratch and try to move on with your day? Well, next thing you know I have a teary-eyed little boy looking piteously up at me, saying “Pwease, mom? More?” And I’m a total sucker for cute, teary-eyed boys who can’t pronounce their “L’s” yet…so I scratch away.

But I still have a household to run, deadlines to meet and other kids to care for. So, as many moms do when they’ve got a lot on their plates, I’ve started multi-tasking my way through back scratches. I’ll scratch his back with one hand while talking on the phone, surfing the web, helping a big sibling with homework or flipping through a magazine with the other. Once I even rinsed dishes in the sink with one hand while scratching his back with the other, as he stood on a chair next to me. (The kid is resourceful.)

Tonight was like many other nights. Owen came into my room for a pre-bedtime snuggle, and after a while, started asking for his regular back scratch. I obliged, but my thoughts were on other things: a blog post I wanted to read, the e-mail I needed to check. So while he lay on his tummy next to me, I scratched away with one hand and surfed the ‘net with the other. Of course, it was annoying. Because I was facing forward, the arm I was using to scratch him was contorted and uncomfortable. And you can’t surf nearly as fast with one hand as with two.

So I made a split-second choice to focus my energy. Turning toward Owen, I put both hands on his back and began to scratch: big, swirling scratches, light, raking scratches. He sighed and sank into the pillow. From the side of his face, I watched his eyelashes flutter down toward his cheeks. I noticed the smoothness of his babyish skin, the curls on the back of his neck. After a few minutes, he was fast asleep, and I’d lulled myself into a kind of trance.

I don’t know if it felt better for Owen to have two hands on his back rather than just the one. But it felt better for me. Turning my full attention to something that I’d been lately regarding as just another routine drag on my time and energy, I got to enjoy the simple, but profound pleasure of physical contact with a little person I love (not to mention the meditative feeling I got from scratch-scratch-scratching away and watching him drift off to sleep).

Am I writing off multi-tasking forever? Nope. With four children, a household to run and a busy career there are plenty of times that I simply must do more than one thing at the same time. And hey…I’m pretty good at it. But the two-handed back scratch served as a gentle reminder that every now and then, it’s important to lay down a few of the balls I’m juggling, turn my attention to one task, and approach it with intention and focus. Not because I’m a martyr or feel like you have to sacrifice every moment of free time for your kids. I’m not, and I don’t. And not just because focusing is better for my children, though I think you could certainly argue that it is. Turning the multi-task switch to “off” every now and then is better for me. When I make a point of tuning into one task or need at a time when possible, I feel calmer, more satisfied, and more connected to the people in my family and the rythyms of my household.

Which, of course, will make the next time I need to juggle eight things at once just a little bit more bearable.

I always love seeing how mom writers with different specialties or focuses manage their time and navigate their careers. So I was thrilled to meet Julie Roads via the information superhighway. As a copywriter, Julie’s writing audience is slightly different from mine, but we both deal with a lot of the same issues: how to market our work, how to please our clients, and how to balance it all with our family lives. I’m especially impressed by Julie because of her notable client list and obvious passion for her work. And Julie has a fantastic blog where she provides helpful insider advice on marketing a business, blogging, and how to get your message across, advice you can use whether you’re an entreprenuer or a writer trying to figure out where you fit in the blogosphere. Here, Julie answers some questions about her work, her approach, her life, and how she balances it all. (You can find my answers to the same questions over on her blog.)

1. Who are you?
I am Julie Roads. A writer, mother of 2 kids (Sophie and Jack) and 2 dogs (Baloula and Silas), wife (to Patti), yogini, lover of butter, Vineyarder, beach walker. (Hey, this is starting to feel like my Facebook page.)

2. What do you do?
I am officially a freelance commercial copywriter. I own my own writing and marketing business called Writing Roads. I’m obsessed with blogging and writing blogs for clients as a way to propel their businesses/work/companies/selves into the webosphere.

3. What kind of writing do you do?
Marketing writing. Which means I write the content for websites, blogs, brochures, ads, sell sheets, speeches, sales letters and on and on. But I spend 80% of my time writing websites and blogs.

4. What kind of writing do you wish you could spend all of your time doing?
I suppose that I’m supposed to say ‘a novel’…but the thing is that I really love what I do. I love talking to clients and really listening to them, who they are and what their business is, doing my research and then creating something for them. I know that I have at least 3 novels in me and they will come out - and I’ve also written 4 children’s books - but, the thing is…marketing writing suits me, and it brings instant joy. Novels are so…long. Blogs in particular are the ultimate platform/landscape for my brain. I love the length and the style and the timeliness.

5. How do you manage your business and your family and yourself?
Who told you that I did? Just kidding. But this is the hardest part of my life. I could work 16 hours a day and never feel ‘done’…or burnt out for that matter. Still, my heart breaks when I’m not with my family. I started my company as an answer to the question, “How can I stay home with my kids and not go broke?” And, I literally mothered them and worked whenever I could. It turned out that I was ‘working’ 24 hours a day - and that wasn’t working for my family. As the kids got a bit older, I was able to carve out time that was dedicated to work…and now I’m up to 8 hours a day (and post-bedtime if I have to).

Bottomline is that you just have to find time for everyone or your family will be so mad at you that you won’t have them anymore! Sometimes I think that I’m the one that gets the shaft because when I have a free moment, I work - but I love what I do so much that it feeds me like going to spa would feed someone else. Okay, I just read that back and I”m a little worried about myself.

How do we really do it? Nuts and bolts? We have a calendar and play with it on a regular basis and we stick to it as much as humanly possible. This is when you work, this is when I workout, this is when we eat, this is when we play….

6. Do you ever get writer’s block?
No.

7. What do you do when this happens?
I’ll tell you why it doesn’t happen. Writer’s block happens when you push against something and get a ton of resistance - like when you say, ‘I’m going to write this right now, no matter what.’ And, I don’t do that. When I sit down to work on a project and nothing flows (15 minutes tops), I just shrug and move on to something else, then I come back to the project later. I know that the words and creativity will flow when they’re ready - and they do. Granted I never start a project an hour before it’s due to safeguard this practice - though I love writing on a tight deadline.

The other thing I do is use the internet. If I have to write a page about the benefits of sharp steak knives (which has actually never happened), I start reading other sites on or around the same topic. I usually find something terribly written and misinformed which makes me all uppity and full of thoughts like, “well, I can do better than thaaaat”…and then, I do.

8. What did having a website do for your business inititally?
Initially, my site was crap. I made it myself from a cheapo template. And it did very little for me. Okay, it did nothing for me.
Then I paid some money (I know, but it’s necessary!) and built a fantastic site that I was proud of that actually had a portfolio of my work…and my business just skyrocketed. There is no other way to describe the credibility that my site gave me. People had some idea of who and what they were getting…and they wanted it!

11. What is the purpose of your blog?
The purpose of my blog is to converse with the wide world of internet users. I use it to inform people about writing, marketing, etc. I use it to show people who I am as a writer and a person. And, I use it to learn. Every post that I write teaches me something about my topic and/or about blogging. My blog is a traffic driver and a tool for searchability. In the last 6 months, my blog has brought my Alexa rank up (or down? Let’s just say closer to #1) over 7 million points. I’ve also met some incredible people via my blog and guest blogging.

12. What have you gotten from your blog that you didn’t intend to get - good and bad?
Good - an education. You don’t know until you do. My work on my own blog directly influences my capacity and ability to blog for others. I learn everyday.
Bad - an addiction. I’m certifiable. I have to post everday. Have to.

13. Is your blog the primary vehicle for selling your work?
Ummmmm….no. The primary vehicle for selling my work is word of mouth and referrals. But the blog is critical to lending me credibility and building me a serious web and search presence.

14. What advice would you give to someone thinking about maybe, possibly, sort of starting a blog and/or a website for their business?
What in the world are you waiting for! Do it now! And, call or email me…Helping people start blogs, build writing strategies and create custom blogs (with my design partners) are all things I love to do - currently one of my favorite parts of my job.

15. Do you run your blog all by yourself (widgets, design, plugins) or does someone help you with that sort of thing?
I do it all by myself, and it’s pretty basic…but I’m looking ahead and I would love to have someone do this for me and make my blog super-fancy and functional. It’ll happen…things always do.

Thanks for “virtually” stopping by, Julie! If you have any questions for either Julie or I on anything from balancing a writing career with kids to the nuts and bolts of professional consumer writing or copywriting, feel free to e-mail them to one of us (you can reach me at meaganfrancis at yahoo dot com) or leave them in the comments box. We’ll be joining up to answer them in a future post.

What a weekend. The first one this spring that’s really hinted at the idea that summer might. just. actually. happen. I spent many hours outside. I took not one, but two long walks–fast, heart-pumping walks, even with the two littles, courtesy of my Graco Quattro Tour Duo stroller, with which I am so enamored that I will devote a whole post to its praises soon.)

Today I meandered over to Micki’s house to help her put in her first plants of the season (okay, I mostly sat on the sidelines and cracked jokes, though I may also have dug a hole or two), and then when she realized that no, she actually did not have room for an entire flat of broccoli in her garden (in addition to the cauliflower, collard greens, kale, lettuce, arugula, and brussels sprouts) we hauled half of it over to my place and planted it here. My first garden in our new place in Chicago. In fact, my first garden in several years. See, the last time I gardened was when my sister and I got ambitious…(very ambitious…okay, ridiculously ambitious for two people with very little gardening experience), “leased” a 25 foot by 25 foot community garden plot from the city we lived in, and tried to start a small organic farm complete with three different varieties of lettuce, zucchini, two different types of tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, and so on. From seed. Soon after that experience I wrote this short play in honor of our attempts:

(We see a 25’ X 25’ garden plot, surrounded by six or so of the same. The plot is full of some sort of vegetation, coming up in odd spurts. Our heroines MEAGAN, a spritely, spunky young woman and her equally spunky and spritely sister KATHREEN are standing in the dirt)

MEAGAN: OK!

KATHREEN: OK….

MEAGAN: OK, so it looks like we’ve got some plants here.

KATHREEN: Yep. Those are definitely some plants.

MEAGAN: Some of these are weeds. Right?

KATHREEN: Yeah. Some have gotta be weeds.

MEAGAN: Do you remember what we planted over here?

KATHREEN: No. I guess we should have marked it off, huh?

MEAGAN: Yeah, but it’s OK. It will just be a surprise when it comes up. Oh…

KATHREEN: What?

MEAGAN: Well, I just realized that we have to pull the weeds but I can’t tell which are weeds and which are plants.

KATHREEN: (pointing) That looks like a weed.

MEAGAN: Yeah, it does, but it looks like it’s coming up in rows.

KATHREEN: What are those people over there doing? Their garden looks pretty good.

MEAGAN: They appear to be hoeing.

KATHREEN: We need a hoe.

MEAGAN: What would we do with a hoe?

KATHREEN: We would hoe with it.

MEAGAN: No, I mean what’s the purpose of hoeing? What does it accomplish?

KATHREEN: Um…I don’t know. Go ask those people.

MEAGAN: No way!

KATHREEN: I think it aerates the soil or something.

MEAGAN: Oh crap, I just pulled out a weed but it has a lima bean seed on the end

KATHREEN: It’s probably not a weed then.

MEAGAN: Why did we plant lima beans? Nobody likes them.

KATHREEN: Well, I think you just pulled them all out anyway.

MEAGAN: Oh, those other people are looking at us—quick! Act like you know what you’re doing.

KATHREEN: We should go buy some plants. This starting from seed thing isn’t really working so well.

MEAGAN: Good idea. Let me finish yanking up all the lima beans first though. I’m on a roll.

KATHREEN: OK.

But that was years ago, and I’ve managed to accomplish a few things since then, including bringing two more children into the world…so maybe successful gardening really is not beyond me. Looking at those little green sprouts, I feel hopeful. I may not be quite up to the task of urban homesteading just yet, but at the very least I’m expecting my kids will be able to watch a few little broccoli plants grow and get the satisfaction of eating something they helped (okay, sorta) plant and harvest. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Following our move to Chicago from small-town Michigan almost a year ago, I admit there have been a few things that have dampened my urban enthusiasm just a tad. Things like sharing a teeny (teeny in my experience, anyway–for the city it’s quite spacious) backyard with several families. Trying to figure out an intimidating and huge school system. Street parking and the necessity of learning to parallel park. The fact that my window got smashed in in front of the Lincoln Park Zoo within two weeks of our moving here, and then the police caught a kid breaking into my minivan in front of my friend’s house in a very nice residential neighborhood just a few blocks from my home. (As I told the officer, there was nothing of value in the van, and the old-french-fries-and-musty-shoe smell the kid had to endure as he searched in vain for cash and valuables was punishment enough). And the much, much higher cost of living (mostly housing, oh, and sales taxes. And did I hear that Chicago’s sales tax just got raised AGAIN?) Sometimes it all gets to me a bit and I fantasize about running for the ‘burbs.

But I can’t deny that there are a lot of things I just love about living in the city, and since today was a really great, warm, summery day and put me in a fantastic mood, I’m feeling moved to share a few:

The diversity. In our local park, we see every imaginable skin color and hear the sounds of many different languages. We live in an area with many Orthodox Jewish families–so many that I’d say we are definitely in the religious minority. My boys’ best friends are Indian, Pakistani and Greek. I love that in less than a year the fact that many of the faces they see look different from themselves has all become totally normal and commonplace to my kids.

The architecture. At first the fact that I lived on a street where most of the buildings looked almost exactly the same was a bit unnerving to me. But now I love looking up and down the blocks and seeing row after row of brick two- and three-flats and bungalows. They are similar, which gives the neighborhood a really neat, uniform look, but they’ve all got their own special charm.

The people I meet. There are more people here, so maybe there’s just a bigger pool to draw from; but I have met more interesting new people in the past ten months than I probably had in the last five years. I made some great friends in Michigan, but I often went weeks without meeting anyone new. Now, I meet somebody new almost every day.

I’m the kind of person who tends to get restless after living anywhere for a little while, and I have a bad case of “grass is greener” syndrome–so it can be easy to overlook the stuff I love while pining away for what I wish I had. But everything is a tradeoff…and even though I’m definitely missing a few things about small-town life, for right now I’m feeling content and happy with my lot in life. Even if my “lot” is, by rural Michigan standards, barely the size of a respectable bedroom.

City girl or country girl? I may never decide once and for all, but at least I can learn to slow down and enjoy the stops I make along the way.

A few days ago, in my “values, meet reality” post , I shared that lately it hasn’t felt like the reality of our lives matches up with my most strongly-held values and ideals about family life. And disconnect #1 is definitely the prominence of video games, internet, television and other technology in our day-to-day lives. Before I go into my plan to stomp out some of the technical imbalance around here, I’d like to share with you my journey from how we went from a no-cable, one computer, no-game-station, one-smallish-television home to the–uh, proud (?) owners of an XBox, XBox 360, Playstation, assorted GameBoys, a biggish TV in the bedroom and an even bigger HDTV in the family room, three laptops and enough laptop parts floating around to assemble laptops for the whole family. Including the baby.

See, my husband is a lover of technology. It’s his thing. He reads up on all the latest gadgets and gear, and since he works in computers, he has access to lots of great deals on computers, software and all the fixings.

I, on the other hand, only watch TV if it’s right in front of me. If it’s not, I forget it exists. I never, ever play video games…in fact, I think I have a video game learning disability, because I can’t even get the people on the screen to run in the right direction. The only video game that remotely interests me is Rock Band, and let’s admit it–that’s just because it gives me an excuse to hold a microphone and belt out Boston tunes. I could care less about winning. I admire high-def televisions when I’m looking at them, but don’t really notice the lack of definition on older sets. I forget to charge my cell phone, so it’s non-functioning for weeks at a time. The only technology I care for at all is my own computer and Internet connection, which I tried to get rid of once, but it turns out it’s pretty hard to conduct research and write articles during a half-hour time slot at the library.

When my kids were little, I was adamant about not having video games in the house. “Those things rot your brain!” I’d protest to my husband, whose brain, I figured, must be at least three-quarters rotted. I wasn’t entirely rational or scientific in my protest against gaming–my only evidence was a gut feeling that there was something really wrong about the look that came over a kid’s (and, okay, my husband’s) face when they were deeply involved in an on-screen battle or quest.

But somehow, we’ve managed to go from there to, well, here. It crept up on me, really…first my husband wanted to get them a game machine “so we can all play together”, and he painted such a blissful picture of father-son togetherness, how could I resist? And then of course, that one was old hat, so we had to get the newer model…and so on, and so forth. And at some point I looked around my house and realized that the technology had gotten completely out of control. Which is why I now advise other parents not to give in to that first game system…it’s a lot harder to stuff the cat back in the bag than it is to just leave it in there to begin with.

So that’s where we are now. A father who lives and breathes technology, a mother who gave in, and four kids who have been increasingly falling under the spell of the screen…but no more. The computer has been unplugged; the XBox is on a shelf, the TV shows are limited. I’d post more tonight, but as it turns out, parenting your kids without the use of techie babysitters is even more exhausting than it is with them. Maybe that’s why we started relying on them more and more in the first place?

More tomorrow. Tonight, I sleep. Well, I sleep, but only after an episode of Reno 911 on Comedy Central. Hey, everything in moderation, right?

(an adapted version of this post will appear on the Chicago Moms Blog.)

Is not easy on me. After the excitement and ritual and pretty lights of Christmas disappear, and I’m still left with at least two, probably three, maybe even four months of dreary cold and early sunsets, I get…well…not exactly “depressed”, but definitely down. Dissatisfied. Dwelling on the negative. Dampened in spirits. And a lot of other “D” phrases I could probably think of if my brain weren’t also feeling rather Dim.

Sometimes this Dissatisfaction can be useful. For example, I blame the January blahs on our decision to move to Chicago last year–those wheels were set in motion right around this time. That was a huge leap of faith for us, and ultimately, a great move. But sometimes dwelling on that Dissatisfaction can lead to Drastic Decisions that aren’t so well-thought-out in the end. It also can lead to my missing a huge chunk of the year. After all, whether I like it or not, January through March takes up a quarter of my life. Do I really want to wish 1/4 of my life away?

So this year, instead of just surviving each day while looking forward to That Day When It Will No Longer Be Winter like I do most years, I’m going to try to focus on the positive and actually find ways to–gasp–get out and enjoy the cold. Part of this was motivated by some deep conversation during my weekend getaway with Toni, whose new web project Bring the Family is inspiring in many ways, not the least of which photogenically (girl makes a midwestern winter look GOOD), and partly because I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of myself for three months every year. Enough with the whining already! Isn’t it time I actually started living my life all the time, which include actually DOING STUFF rather than just READING about doing stuff because I’m too big a wuss to go outside?

So that’s it. I’m challenging myself to LIVE, January and February and March and even that really cruddy part at the end of March, when it’s basically just a world of cold slush outside. I’m gonna just put on some warm boots and get out there. Okay, except for on those days when it actually feels like my eyeballs are getting frostbitten. Those days are the ones baking, hot cocoa, a good book, and a warm afghan. And hey–those things are all worthy of celebration, too.

Anyone else with me?

–Cross-posted to the Chicago Moms Blog

As you may have noticed, here at D2D we’ve moved away from following certain themes and topics, so that we could maintain a more conversational, casual flow of discussion here.

It was a great idea, really. Before, when we were posting based on specific themes, I’d see of all kinds of fantastic resources and then kill myself trying to think of a way to fit them into the topic of the month. Or I’d have an idea for a post that seemed especially timely or helpful, but then I’d file it away to post about later, when it fit the theme du jour. (I never did. They never did.)

Several years ago, before I’d gotten serious about my freelancing career, I was talking with somebody about whether or not I REALLY wanted to write for magazines.

"I mean, I love to write," I said. "I’d love to write for a living. But I want to write about what I WANT to write about, not what somebody ELSE tells me I have to write about. I don’t want anyone else telling me what to dooooooo." 

Somewhere along the line, though, I gave in, and now have even become so accustomed to writing for others that writing for myself no longer comes as naturally as it once did. Perhaps I simply don’t have the time, brainpower or creativity left to let a flood of ideas flow from my fingertips after filing how-to stories on contracted, assigned topics.

Once upon a time, I was a prolific blogger (long before D2D or any of my current blogs, I had a regularly-updated personal blog). My entries were fun and off-the-cuff and plentiful. And essays; I was forever starting (and sometimes even finishing) essays about a variety of topics. And I dabbled in poetry and half-written short stories and even plays. On the other hand, I had a very hard time coming up with ideas that anyone else might like to buy. I had a hard time tailoring my early articles to the markets I was writing for. I was overflowing with stuff I wanted to write. The only problem was that much of it wasn’t publishable.

There’s that tradeoff thing again. Most of us already know that the life of a working writer–especially a working writer with children–doesn’t usually mean a life of luxurious creativity, choosing only the projects one feels passionate about, and having plenty of time for everything else in our lives–being there for our children for all of their waking moments, practicing yoga for two hours a day, and perhaps a hobby, like breeding and training hairless guinea pigs for profit. We can have SOME of these things, and on a good day, we might manage to squeeze it all in, but day in and day out, something’s gotta give. And so it goes with our careers. Last year I was giving a talk to a group of college students in a writing for publication class, and I told them "When you’re first starting out, you have to make a choice: Either you can write only what you want to, when you want to, on the topics that you want to; OR, you can make a living at this." Okay, so it’s possible you could make a million dollars off your first novel, but you’d STILL have to put in a lot of time before you see a dime. There’s always a tradeoff, and I think we have to be prepared to make it when we are getting started. It helps to know, very specifically, what your career goals are. Somebody who wants to make a name for herself writing serious think-pieces for the Atlantic should probably choose a different path from someone who wants to pay the bills by writing advertorials. And if you’re moving your career along in a certain direction, the tradeoff is that you may just not have as much time or energy left for other things.

But isn’t it great? We can choose! And we can have the writing life and career that works for us right now and a year from now, whether that means we want to pen the occasional story when we can take a moment out of raising our families, or whether we’re hoping to build a career writing for magazines. If tomorrow I decided that I was tired of writing as my main source of income, I could get a different job and still write essays and stories and even magazine articles only on topics that move and excite me. I’m a writer for life, but I can choose the way writing fits into my day-to-day existence right now and change it later.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s exciting. It means I can be many things during my lifetime. It means that the novel I have always felt is in me somewhere has time to percolate until I’m in a place in my life that I can get it down. Making a choice sometimes feels like giving something up, but I like to think that I’m just making room in my future life for whatever I can’t do now.

And look–I managed to write a whole blog post, without anyone telling me what to do. See? Turns out I’ve still got it

–Happy writing!

Meagan

How many times have you done one of the following?

• Put off getting childcare you desperately need to work because you can’t justify the cost. No, you’ll just find a way to write that 2,000-word article after everyone’s gone to bed, when your eyelids are hovering at half-mast
• Found yourself interrupting your work to tend to requests for snacks or break up a squabble–when your spouse is also in the house, watching TV or reading the newspaper
• Apologized to your spouse for asking him or her to watch the kids while you make a deadline

July’s theme is Taking Yourself Seriously. I’d like to tell you something I learned the hard way: nobody is going to take your writing seriously until you take it seriously yourself. Not your husband or wife or partner, not your kids, not your mother, and certainly not the editor you’re trying to impress.

It can be really difficult to do this, whether we’re just starting out or have been established for years. When we aren’t widely published or making a lot of money from writing, it’s hard to justify the time we spend working on it. Sometimes, even when we are well-established, it can feel like we’re letting somebody down if we’re taking time away from family needs to work–even when we’re squeezing writing into the hours nobody else wants from us (usually sometime after midnight). Hiring child care or household help can seem like a luxury we neither need nor deserve. Asking the spouse to help out in the off-hours just seems unfair. After all, doesn’t he (or she) deserve a break, too?

But here’s the thing–if you’re serious about having a writing career, it’s illogical to try to cram writing in after every other commitment in your life. It simply won’t work. There has to be an investment made in your role as a writer, whether it’s financial, or time, or even emotional–the mindset that you deserve to have it and that it’s valuable not just to you but the whole family. Think of it this way: if you were working outside of the home, it’s not as though you’d look at childcare, or a work wardrobe, or a business-related trip as an expense you couldn’t justify. And I’ve never heard of a single mother expecting her husband to tote a toddler to the office with him.

I’m not arguing that every writer needs or has to have child care when they’re just getting started. I didn’t for a while, for a variety of reasons. Often, money is so tight that the budget simply won’t allow for child care expenses, no matter how badly you want a sitter. In those cases, you have to improvise for a while. Some people make a commitment to keeping their children at home while they work, and I respect and admire that. But if they’re going to gain momentum–without completely losing their minds and burning out after a few months–there’s still going to have to be compromises made in some other area. It’s not about child care, specifically–what you really need is a mindset that your writing is a priority. It’s not shoved to the bottom of the list somewhere after vacuuming the drapes. If that means you have to get somebody else to vacuum the drapes, so be it. If you don’t want to use a sitter, then your partner or spouse might have to take over for you in the evenings and on weekends so you can write. Don’t apologize for it. Your career is not unimportant, and it’s not selfish. Even if you aren’t making money yet, the time you’re putting in now is building a solid foundation for income later. That’s what owning your own small business–and really, being a working writer is running a small business–is all about. You put in a lot of hours at the beginning for a payoff down the road.

It’s not always easy to convince the people in our lives that what we’re doing is important and valuable and that there will be a return on investment later. That’s why you have to convince yourself first. If you aren’t certain that you deserve or need the family to invest in your career, fake it until you make it. Don’t apologize for your work. Don’t grovel or beg for scraps of time. Figure out what you absolutely need and arrange to make it happen. Expect some resistance, but don’t give in. Just re-state what you need over and over until it sinks in.

This month at D2D we’ll be talking about taking yourself seriously. We’ll tackle some of the age-old writing-parent questions: how can I afford child care when I can’t afford child care but I need child care to work? How do I get my family on board with my plans? How do I get them to respect my working time and space? How do I get editors to take me seriously when it’s obvious I’m an at-home writing parent? We’ll offer practical tips and inspiration, but one thing that’s going to pop up again and again is that it starts with you. Take yourself seriously. Start right now. What is one thing you can do to invest in your business? We’d love to hear about it in the comments, below. And look for more posts about giving yourself–and your writing career–the respect both of you deserve.

Happy writing!

–Meagan

Talk to enough writers and the subject of measuring success by a per-word versus an hourly rate is bound to arise. Some magazine writers reach a point where they won’t accept work below a certain per-word rate or beyond the most popular household titles. Others quietly make a great living writing for myriad out-of-the-spotlight pubs, including trade magazines and special interest publications. Having a low "pain-in-the-backside" factor comes up often, too. Is it worth it to write for $2/word if your hourly rate dwindles with each edited-by-committee re-write mandate or request for more research and interviews? Sometimes lesser-known publications paying $.50/word are dreamboat pubs with non-grabby contracts, few editorial hassles and editors ecstatic to have competent writing submitted on time. That hourly rate sure changes when you factor in the various requirements for any project, and knowing this is a huge key to becoming and staying a successful writer.

For me, the definition of success has shifted around quite a bit. At first, simply being published was enough. When my mother-in-law presented me with what is probably the most touching gift I’ve ever received–a scrapbook filled with every local sports clip I’d written for our tiny weekly paper–I was floored. I’m still proud of those clips; I learned a ton from writing about a topic about which I had little interest, including dodging tired, old cliches! The pay didn’t begin to cover the Starbuck’s I consumed writing those pieces, but I didn’t care. I was writing for money and being published, and that was success aplenty for me. My first national clips (including a personal essay) for a pregnancy magazine similarly thrilled me.

The definition of success kept evolving: breaking into X or Y publication, gaining an acceptance a few minutes after receiving a rejection, being able to easily say "I’m a freelance writer" when asked what I do for a living without choking on my fear that someone would point and shout "FRAUD!" Receiving generous ‘kudos’ letters from sources and editors with whom I’d worked.

Success for me currently means gaining acceptance into peer organizations like ASJA or SATW, landing that first book deal, breaking into magazines I’ve long dreamed of writing for, and successfully shifting the direction of my writing business to include subjects I’m passionate about covering. But it also means working smarter, not harder–understanding that there is value in taking gigs that aren’t sexy or prestigious but will cover my student loan payments or allow our family to take a dreamy vacation. Knowing my value as a writer while still always striving to improve and evolve. Being able to say "I’m a freelance writer" to myself, knowing how blessed and lucky I am to do what I love for a living.

What’s your definition of success as a writer? Has it changed along the way? Where do you see it shifting or evolving with time? Let us know your thoughts about success in the comments to this post.

Have a successful month!

–Toni

I recently heard of a writer who earns $600K annually; he works about 70 hours a week and says he wouldn’t have it any other way. I know another writer who writes for a regional parenting magazine as a springboard to develop clips before approaching bigger markets. This allows her ample time to rekindle her love of fiction writing and to tend to her two young children.

Which of these writers is more successful? If you were to ask them, they’d both offer compelling arguments. Both are pursuing their passions in ways that satisfy them. Each yields specific but very different financial, emotional, and professional rewards.

During the month of June, we’re going to be examining what it means to be successful as a writer. Does merely getting paid count? The amount per word? The number of hits and comments to your blog? How about landing that first book deal? And while money certainly isn’t everything, for how much longer must the writing profession fall under that stereotypical beret of the "starving artist?"

We’ll feature interviews with writers who honed their own personal definitions of success and share some of our own experiences in this pursuit.

You may have noticed that we’ve taken down the message boards for now, but in the meantime, comments to our posts are open again. Feel free to share your thoughts and your own success stories, big, small, lucky, or hard-won. And look for more frequents posts and interviews this month!

–Toni