SPRING CLEANING YOUR MOJO

 
By Karen Cino



Could it already be April?

Ssh…don’t tell anyone, but I am still crawling around, unable to find the motivation I need to move forward with my new project. It’s the same thing, day in and day out. Just when I’m ready to sit down and crank out a skeleton of an outline (and believe me that would work for me especially at this time of no momentum) sometime pops up.

It’s been one thing after the other. This time, instead of working on my outline, I’ve been playing around with my new birthday gift, my Kindle! Yea for the Kindle! Nay to another lame excuse not to work on that outline.

I am bound and determined to get this outline done this Spring. As I sit here, I think about my fellow writers who are going through the same exact thing. So, I decided that it’s time that I put the breaks on excuses and get myself –and my family –on the band-wagon.

Trying to find the time to write when you are parent can be a challenge. I find it harder now to write then when my kids were toddlers and I was holding down a full-time job working a 45-hour week.

I always had composition notebooks, coloring books and crayons on hand. We always sat around the kitchen table doing our own writing. I’d make it a game. Make it fun. I used to have breakfast-for-dinner nights. Those were the nights when I got the most writing done. It gave us all something to look forward to and in return, once dinner was over they would watch television in their rooms, and I was able to do my writing.

Now, writing has become a family affair. Both my son and my daughter are blessed with artistic and creative abilities. My son is a musician who writes lyrics and composes the music. My daughter loves writing too but has now put her energy into being a photographer. Perfect! We have decided that we will all take an hour a day when we are all home together to work on our projects without any interruptions, including texting and calling one another.

Having a full-time job and being a parent can really be a challenge. But keeping a positive attitude and finding just an hour a day in the midst of your busy schedule, will force you to use that hour efficiently. And that I can attest to.

This month give it a shot. See if you can steal an hour a day for your writing. I know this can be hard, but if I can do it {sometimes}, then so can you. Happy Writing!



Karen Cino is President of the Romance Writers of America / New York City chapter. She writers women’s fiction novels set in Staten Island.