
I have a confession: This assignment is due painfully soon, and I’m just getting started. I’d planned to start last week, but then my 18-month-old came down with a fever, which meant that instead of cranking out content, I spent an entire afternoon on the sofa in the family room, trapped underneath my sleeping son. Since then, the assignments have been stacking up like Tetris. I’m a day or two behind marking student homework, too. And don’t even ask what’s happening with my book proposal.
Such is the plight of the “write-at-home mom,” my term for those of us taking care of our children and managing a home while also attempting to maintain some kind of writing practice. For me, being a write-at-home mom means feeding, changing, and entertaining a baby while composing pitches, fielding emails from editors, and revising my latest chapter in my head. Maybe you’re working on a novel – when you’re not chauffeuring family members from one activity to another, volunteering in your preschooler’s classroom, or dropping off cash to the middle schooler who forgot his lunch.