Tag Archives: juggling

Wanted: a cave, no wifi

You out can tell that winter’s setting in because it’s all about hibernating in our house: hiding away from the world, feeling the comfort of a small space to cosy up in. We made a sofa fort one particularly rainy day last week, but Arthur’s just as happy with simpler residences: cardboard boxes, suitcases, laundry bags… Especially laundry bags.

I can totally see where he’s coming from. And it’s not just the chill in the air, or the increasing amounts of rain, or the fact it seems to get dark soon after lunchtime. As I watch Arthur taking such pleasure in climbing or crawling into tiny spaces, I find myself longing for a cave. Preferably one far away from anywhere with no phone line, and most definitely no wifi. Somewhere I could block out the world, work on my novel uninterrupted, and get this redraft finished.

I’m still managing to snatch an hour a day – sometimes two. And it’s going pretty well. Very well, even. So much so that it’s an an almighty wrench to tear myself away when my time is up. I find myself clinging to the keyboard as Arthur tugs on my jumper after his nap, desperate to finish my train of though, or at least one more sentence, one more word…

It’s not really Arthur though, if I’m honest. He is so much fun at the moment, and it’s hard to begrudge time spent with him. But all the other demands on my time seem to be piling up, just as I want to hunker down and write!

Council meetings, securing the future of our local lido, researching education provision for the Neighbourhood Plan, deciphering the impact of the mayoral budget, Governor meetings, presenting certificates at prize giving, helping to raise funds for refugees. Then there’s all the normal household stuff. And December, with Christmas and Arthur’s birthday, rearing up over the horizon.

All that has to be dealt with too, but as I try to focus on it I have the niggling voices of my characters in my head, imploring me to decide their fate, to put them out of their misery, to free them from the conflicting prose that I am in the midst of untangling.

I’m not complaining, not really.

I know that I’m privileged to have so much going on – so much that is stretching me and challenging me and (hopefully) making a difference in my community.

But still sometimes, selfishly, I just want to shut it all out. To lose myself completely in the world of my novel. To write.

And it is then that I hanker after that cave – with no wifi.

Dear daddy

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It’s so good to have you to myself again. I know you’ve been busy, making people’s ouchies better in the hospital. I know you’ve been working hard.

But I’ve missed you.

Life is so much more fun when you’re around.

I love going on adventures with you and mummy – I asked her where you were, every time, when we set out on our own. We had lots of good times together just the two of us, but it’s even better when you can come too.

Your shoulders are broader, and your hair doesn’t tickle so much.

I always got so excited when I saw your car pull into the drive: clamouring against the window, nose pressed to the glass as it misted up with my giggles. You would come right up and put your nose against mine and draw love in the cloud of our breath. When you disappeared again I would worry for a moment, but then I would hear your key in the lock and run as fast as I could for cuddles in the kitchen.

Thank you for always having time for me, even when you had been up since before dawn and had been ground down by mean consultants and endless traffic. Thank you for not even waiting to take off your coat before kneeling down to play train tracks, for finding the patience to do washing things before bed even when you would rather be having a glass of wine and collapsing on the sofa. Thank you for making me laugh and reading me stories until we both fell asleep in the chair.

I love it when you read with me.

Thank you for the tickles and the Gruffalo cuddles and the prickle kisses.

Thank you for making mummy smile.

I know that sometimes I am hard work with my throwing and my hitting and my frustration at the world. But every time you listen to me it helps me begin to work it out, and every time you hold me it helps me remember how much I am loved.

I love you too, daddy.

Thank you for being.

Top tips for taming anxiety with a toddler in tow

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The last few weeks have been pretty bonkers. So much so that this week, now that everything has started to calm down just a little bit, I’ve found myself struggling to focus and teetering on the edge of panic at the slightest thing.

It’s a tendency I recognise from periods in my life when I have been overcome by anxiety. Not the anxiety that is borne of a genuinely nerve-wracking situation, but rather the insidious and potentially overwhelming feeling that the world is about to spiral out of control.

It’s frustrating to say the least – there was so much I wanted to get done this week, and sitting here now at the tail end of it there is so much I haven’t achieved. But most of what I wanted to do required focus, a clear head – and those are the things that have been most elusive.

The difference though this time round is that I’ve recognised my symptoms for what they are – my sometimes fragile mental health crying out for a little attention after a relentless period where I was embroiled in the unknown territory of election campaigning (it worked by the way!), and my core support network of husband and mum have themselves been tied up in finals revision and preparing for my brother’s wedding respectively. But my anxiety hasn’t got the better of me, and I have made every effort to make sensible choices to enable myself to keep going.

Being accompanied by a toddler pretty much every minute of every day has definitely added a different dimension to that process. And not necessarily in a bad way.

It seems pretty apt, with this week being Mental Health Awareness Week, that I share a little of what’s been on my mind. So without further ado, these are my top tips for taming anxiety with a toddler in tow.

1) Catch up on sleep

I reckon this is possibly the most vital, though also the trickiest, part of the plan. I have tried to get to bed a bit earlier this week, though I’ve never really been very good at the discipline that involves (especially as we’re deep in the midst of season five of The Walking Dead).

For me snatching sleep has mostly happened during the day – taking my iPad up to bed so in the morning the toddler can snuggle up with a movie whilst I get a few extra zzzs, and for the first time in ages trying to nap when he naps.

I realise I’m lucky he still does, else I’m not entirely sure how I would have coped…

2) Eat healthily

I’m ordinarily pretty good at keeping a healthy diet going for all of us, but it had certainly started to slip over the last couple of weeks. I couldn’t face the battles that potentially ensued if I moved too far from toast and pasta, and didn’t have the energy to prepare something different for myself so ended up having my diet dictated by a two year old.

It’s silly, because I know how much good food makes the difference. This week I’ve been upping the fruit and veg, cutting down on carbs, (mostly) remembering to take my supplements – and feeling all the better for it.

3) Get some exercise

There’s been an awful lot of walking involved in the election campaign, but that was accompanied by a sense of drudgery in the later stages. This week I’ve, albeit tentatively, started reintegrating yoga and hula-hooping into my routine. With that and the Friday trampolining sessions that I’ve just about managed to keep ticking over I’ve started to feel the spring returning to my step.

4) Get outside

I have a real tendency when I’m feeling overwhelmed to go into hibernation mode – even opening the doors to the garden can feel like too much at times. But having a little person around who would ideally spent every waking moment outside definitely comes in handy.

We’ve had lunch outside a couple of times this week, and spent time just lounging around and looking up at the sky. The sunshine has helped – but actually the fresh air simply works wonders whatever the weather.

5) Tidy up!

Now this is something I’m rubbish at, and I still have a long way to go, but it is amazing how getting rid of the mess and the clutter makes the world seem so much more manageable!

I had a bit of a manic afternoon on Wednesday getting the kitchen ship shape as yesterday morning we were visited by a reporter from our local BBC News to interview me in relation to the local elections. It felt a little bit like torture at the time, but the kitchen is now definitely my happy place, a little oasis of calm amongst the widespread detritus which has come from just not having a second to get things under control (at least not without the toddler wreaking his own brand of havoc).

6) Tick some things off your to-do list

Now I have to admit first of all that the ever-increasing list of things I have to do is still residing mainly in my head. I know this isn’t helpful. My poor diary, that gave me such satisfaction when I first filled it in back in January, hasn’t had a look in for weeks.

I’ll work on that…

But in the meantime I have been having stern words with myself about just getting things done rather than ruminating over how much I need to do them. Writing blog posts, for example. Or emails. Or paying bills. All sorts of little bits and pieces that have literally felt like a weight off my mind once I’ve actually achieved them.

(It still took me until this evening to get round to writing this post. I never said I was perfect.)

7) Be kind to yourself

This is another biggie, and is one that is challenging to put into practise when your head is full of noise. But in order not to be consumed by it, it is vital to work on your internal dialogue.

I say dialogue, because at times like this there are two voices in my head rather than just the one. There’s one that seems determined to pull me down – with comparisons, with regrets, with paranoia. And there’s another, the one that needs to fight to get heard, that is trying its utmost to focus on the positive – to remember that it’s ok to feel overwhelmed, it’s ok to slow down, it’s ok not to achieve everything I wanted to, because actually, on balance, I’m doing a pretty awesome job of this whole life business.

8) Make the most of all the cuddles

This is where the toddler truly comes into his own, where having an extra little shadow really does become a blessing rather than just another cause of messiness and having too much to juggle.

I don’t know about yours, but my little person absolutely loves to snuggle up. Not all the time, but certainly more than I normally slow down to give him credit for. And this week I have been making the most of all of that physical contact filled with warmth and love – whether it’s lingering in bed a little longer in the mornings, cosying down together to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the umpteenth time, or seeing off an approaching tantrum by whipping him up into the sling.

There have been many times when I have been the centre of calm for my child, but it is a wonderful realisation that he can return that favour too.

My word of the week this week is anxiety.

Also linking up with this week’s prompt of calm. I’m getting there!

Juggling

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This past week has been a week of two halves for me as far as writing is concerned.

Before the weekend, I was really finding myself struggling with the inevitable juggling that comes with being a stay-at-home mum to a toddler as well as an aspiring novelist. The edit itself was going brilliantly – I seem to have way more clarity this time round, noticing things that passed me by as I worked on the second draft and having no qualms about cutting things that I can now see are unnecessary. I’m also really enjoying elaborating where it’s needed, and I definitely feel as though the characters are springing into life much more convincingly as a result. In fact I’m enjoying it so much that actually I wanted nothing else but to hole up with my manuscript and my computer and just get on with it – let myself get lost in the words and the world I have created with them, just work and work until it’s done. And this is precisely where the problem lies.

Because I can only really work in chunks of a couple of hours at a time. If I’m lucky I’ll get two of those in a day, whilst Arthur’s napping in the sling and I can focus all my energies on the novel. More often it’s just one though – and sometimes not even that.

I know that I am incredibly lucky to be spending so much time with my little man. And I want to make sure that I make the most of it – that I’m truly present when we’re hanging out together. I worry sometimes that he’s missing out on the range of activities he’d get from being at nursery or with a childminder, so as well as the music and drama and gymnastics classes we go to I’m trying to find time to do arts and crafts together, to get outside as much as we can. And I think I’m getting there – but always swirling around with all of this is the desire to be writing, to be working on the edit. And the worry that maybe it just isn’t possible to juggle it all, that I’m going to have to admit defeat on one front or another. And that I really don’t want to do.

But then, just as my brain was about to explode, one of my oldest, bestest friends arrived for a visit with her family. Entertaining Arthur took care of itself – her older daughter is only a month younger than him, and it was lovely to watch them spend some quality time getting to know each other. She has a five-month-old too, who Arthur was completely rapt with, revealing a gentle, nurturing side to him that I haven’t really seen before. And us adults got to have lots of much-needed grown-up chats, about how hard it all was but how much we were loving it. And I remembered that it’s ok for the juggle to feel like a struggle sometimes and that I really should cut myself a bit of slack in my quest to be the perfect mum.

So whilst it’s now halfway through the week and the edit has remained untouched since Friday, I’m feeling pretty good about it all. My enthusiasm actually meant that I’d got through more than I’d thought I would before the enforced and much-appreciated break, and I reckon that if I can find a bit of extra time over the weekend I can make up for the time I’ve missed.

The chapter that’s currently staring at me from my desk, waiting for my scribbles before I rehash it in the electronic draft, is one of the most crucial overall. So I’m glad my head is a little less full as I turn my thoughts towards it.

And on that note, I had better stop my ruminations here and make the most of the rest of this nap. This edit won’t write itself after all.

Just need to stay focused…

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I started this year with such grand plans. Not resolutions, exactly – I only really made one of those. But so many different things I wanted to do. I was raring to go, in fact – after two weeks of not doing anything particularly constructive over Christmas I couldn’t wait to start ticking some tasks off my mental to do list.

As well as my goals around my novel and blogging, I really need to find some time to get our increasingly messy house in order. And then there’s Arthur – as he gets older I’m starting to feel like I want to structure our days together a little bit more closely. He’s with me pretty much all the time, and whilst we do get out to a few excellent groups over the course of the week I want to ensure I’m giving him the opportunities for a whole range of different types of play, not just the ones that are easiest for me to facilitate. I’ve got lots of ideas for all of this – I know pretty much exactly what I want to do in fact, at least in my head.

But actually, in reality, it’s felt a bit like the universe has been conspiring against me getting very much done.

Arthur’s sleep is still all over the place since he’s moved out of his cot, and this has coincided with a particularly busy period for my husband (he has his finals at medical school this year, so the academic pressure is being ramped up alongside an increasingly challenging schedule of hospital shifts). I am, to put it plainly, knackered. And that does not do much for my productivity.

There also seems to be lots going on in Arthur’s ever-growing social life. I’d sort of forgotten that following him turning two at the end of December we would have a very busy few weeks of birthdays with NCT and baby group friends. This is all great fun of course – but does add in a whole other layer of things to organise!

I’ve found myself collapsing on the sofa after seemingly endless days barely able to recall what I’d managed to achieve since I’d got up that morning whilst listening to the whirr of things I still needed to do and wondering when my mind would ever be still enough to focus on them – let alone make a proper start on editing that novel…

And then it struck me. I didn’t need to keep all this stuff trapped inside my head. I needed in fact to write it down, to make some lists, to see it all there plain and simple so I could begin to tackle it. I needed to get a diary.

I’m not entirely sure why I stopped using a diary – a paper one at least. In the ten years I was teaching I would never go anywhere without my planner. Every thought and task relating to my professional life would be documented in there somewhere – and it was an important ritual at the beginning of each week to go through and get my goals clear in my head. I kept a separate diary for my personal tasks – a pocket moleskine one for years, with space for notes. This gradually transitioned onto my phone, and once I was on maternity leave that electronic method became the only one I used.

That seemed ok, for a while. Especially once Arthur arrived so much of what I had to do was so ‘in the moment’ that it seemed a waste of any precious spare seconds to write it down. Things have got increasingly complicated since those early days, but I’ve generally managed to muddle through, hanging the thoughts and tasks in my head onto our simple routines and frantically making the occasional list when it all got too much.

But I’ve realised that the time has come when I need more structure. There are so many balls I’m trying to juggle now that if I try to do it by the power of my mind alone then I’m going to start dropping them. So last weekend I ordered a diary. A moleskine, for old-time’s sake, but one which encapsulates what I loved about my teacher planner alongside the conventional day by day approach. It’s called a ‘professional taskmaster’ (even the name makes me feel more organised), and it’s pretty awesome.

When it arrived on Tuesday I sat down and filled in our plans for the week ahead, spread clearly over two A4 pages. Then on the next two, in the bullet pointed spaces for ‘actions and projects’, I decided on my non-negotiables for the week. There were quite a lot of them, but seeing them there in black and white made it all seem possible.

And as the week’s gone on I’ve been taking great pleasure in ticking off the things I have achieved. I’d forgotten quite how satisfying simple,everyday lists are. I’m still playing catch-up a little, and I’m still exhausted, but I’m getting there. I’m looking forward to reflecting back on my week on Sunday, celebrating what I’ve done and setting out what needs to happen next.

None of this is rocket science I realise, but they are things that somehow I had forgotten in all the changes I have lived through in the past couple of years. And I’m hoping, as I fall back into the routines left over from a very different life, they might just help me to keep the one I’m living now more focused.

Word of the week: trains

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Over the past couple of weeks, Arthur has developed a real passion for his train set. He was given it for Christmas last year, and whilst he’s shown a passing interest before it’s only recently that he’s really given it his full attention. He’s figured out how to put the pieces of track together, and whilst he loves it when someone sits down and plays with him he’s equally happy to be given the time to play with his train tracks by himself.

And this week that’s been particularly handy.

After our whirlwind trip to London I’ve had so much to catch up on. Not least the novel, which is edging ever closer to completion though I’m not quite there yet.

Because this has also been one of those weeks when my time and focus has been stretched in all sorts of directions I hadn’t exactly been anticipating. Meet ups with friends that I didn’t want to refuse, for Arthur’s sake or mine, despite knowing it would knock my schedule out of whack. Taking over a local twitter account (@TorbayPeople) because no-one else stepped up to the mark. A piece I wrote a while ago being published in The Guardian, the excitement of which threw me a bit yesterday!

And then of course there’s Halloween, which seems to have appeared out of nowhere this year! So throw in some pumpkin carving, some baking, some costume making.

It’s all been good fun, but I have been squeezing every last drop out of every second to fit it in.

And for much of that time, when I’ve been writing or blogging or tweeting or making something or another, Arthur has sat contentedly and played with his trains. Now that it’s finally the weekend, I’m looking forward to sitting down and playing with him too.

This time I mean it.

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This time last week, I claimed that I would be logging into Scrivener the very next day to begin applying the editing notes I’ve scribbled all over my printed manuscript. There is a problem with setting targets for tomorrow though, and that is of course that tomorrow never comes.

I’m not entirely sure what went wrong really.

I found another great book, How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein, which really made me think about the extent to which I’ve been writing for my reader rather than just myself. In fact every couple of pages I came across another nugget of wisdom that I felt would enhance my next draft – so much so that I didn’t want to go back to my manuscript until I’d finished it.

I’ve done lots of blogging though. Possibly a bit too much. It’s amazing how the inspiration for blog posts just seems to flow when there’s something else you should be doing.

And then there’s hanging out with Arthur, keeping the house looking vaguely presentable, suddenly getting incredibly paranoid about the mummy tummy that I’m still carrying around with me nearly two years down the line…

You get the picture.

So today, before writing this post, I made sure I actually logged on to Scrivener, opened the first draft of my novel in both its electronic and printed form, and began the process of adding and subtracting and changing words around. And do you know what, it wasn’t so bad.

I think I’ve built it up in my mind so much over the last few weeks that it felt like an almost insurmountable task. I had thought of so many things that needed tweaking that I couldn’t see how I was even going to hold them in my head let alone put them into practice. But then that’s what the post-it notes are for isn’t it?

There’s another book I’ve picked up – Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott – which I’m going to try to resist reading for the time being. It gets its title though from something the author’s father said to her then ten year old brother who was agonising over a project on birds that he had to complete. The sage advice which I plan to hold on to over the next few weeks was “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

I still have some more specific research to do, but I’m not going to let that stop me working through my manuscript. I actually enjoyed it this morning, way more than I thought I would – now that I have a pretty clear idea of what I’m trying to do it’s pretty satisfying playing around with the words until it starts to fall into place.

I’m going to set myself a loose goal of a chapter a day. I know some days will be better than others, and different chapters need different amounts of work. But I need some sort of target to keep me working, and it’s most definitely time to get this edit properly underway.

And this time, I mean it.

The edit begins…

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At the moment my desk looks something like this. Having let the first draft of my second novel sit and mature over a long and glorious summer, it is time to get down to the serious business of editing.

I’m trying to be quite methodical about it so far. My first step was to read the manuscript in its printed form – an altogether different experience from reading it on the screen – annotating it with things that struck me: questions, problems, things I might need to change.

I’ve quite enjoyed getting back into the story, but to be honest I’m finding it pretty tricky to keep an objective eye on it. Fortunately I’m not doing this alone: I’ve had several people read the first draft and give me feedback, including my agent who handily vocalised some of the things that were niggling me about the characters in particular.

That’s where the post-it notes come in. There are a few amendments to specific scenes I’m working on, but mostly they’re threads that run through the whole book, things that need to be tweaked to achieve the effect I’m aiming for and keep the reader on side. So as I read through the draft again, a different coloured pen in hand this time, my eyes are flicking to those orange stars as my mind shifts and changes and adds the details that I think will make a difference.

I’m about a third of the way through this second critical reading now, and am quietly satisfied by the things that are starting to fall into place. I’m hoping that by the middle of next week I should be able to get back into Scrivener and start the actual rewrite – and that as I switch from paper to screen again more ideas will seep in to give my story the depth and authenticity it needs.

It’s an exciting process, and definitely a challenging one. I think the biggest challenge is not being able to completely immerse myself in it – having to keep a toddler entertained and trying to keep this blog going too. So the edit is happening in very distinct chunks, and invariably I have to tear myself away just as things are getting interesting.

But I’m working on it every day, and hopefully my brain will keep ticking over during the enforced breaks, searching out new inspiration and solving the problems that remain outside my grasp whilst I’m staring at the page. I’m not very good at being patient – once I set my mind to something I generally just like to get it done. But in this case I think the slower pace might just work to my advantage… We shall see.

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Sophie is…

on a journey of (re)discovery in a brave new world.