Category: Real Life Writer

12 Things Single Parents and Indie Writers Have In Common

I am not a single parent. I have a wonderful husband who is a great home maker. But I was a single mom for the first six years of my daughter’s life. Her dad and I were together, but we didn’t live together. (Long story.)

Now that I’m not a single mom anymore, I am an indie writer. Apparently I thought my life was too easy. Having done first one, and now the other, though, I’m seeing similarities. A lot of what I learned as a single parent has, in fact, made me a better indie writer. A lot of what I learned no one bothered to tell me, and I wish someone had. So if you yourself are a single parent, or an indie writer, here are 12 things to keep in mind.

You’re going to have to learn to take some shit

Not everyone approves of single parents or indie writing. People are going to tell you that you are wrong, and that you are making a bad decision. They will tell you that you are messing up your life, and that you need to just listen to them. Yeah, no. If I’ve learned anything over the course of my thirty years, it’s that people who are telling me to just listen to them about my life probably has nothing good to tell me. I had to make my own choice, and if that choice set my life difficulty on ‘nightmare’ then that’s on me. If you can, remove people from your life who would tell you that you are living it wrong.

Sleep? Yeah, that’s not a thing you’re really going to do for a little while

I didn’t get a full nights sleep until my daughter was a year and a half. Even when she started sleeping through the night, I was still up until all hours doing dishes or cleaning, or trying to sneak a little writing in. Then, of course, anytime she made a noise it woke me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Now that I’m producing my own books, there is a constant stream of things that need done. Right now, I’m getting up crazy early to have time to write before the day job, then working on business hat stuff after the monsters are in bed. Most nights I’m averaging seven hours. Most. But I have pulled all nighters, getting stuff done. It’s not healthy to do often, but sometimes I’m just not going to get anywhere without it. Grow accustomed to finding out just how little sleep you can really live on.

Your day job is just one thing on a very long list of things that you need to do in a day.

This one is true for parents with co parents, too. I have a husband, and I still have so much more to do than just my day job. There’s still homework to help with, classes and appointments, grocery shopping. Then we’ll throw all my writing stuff on top of that. And when I was a single mommy, it was worse. There wasn’t going to be dinner unless I shopped for food, cooked it, and washed dishes to put it on. There would be no clean clothes unless I washed them. There was no such thing as coming home and crashing on the couch. There was come home, cook dinner, wash the dishes, play with the monster, put her to bed, clean the house, then crash hard. Now, replace all the cooking and cleaning with talking to book reviewers, making advertisements, editing and writing, and that’s what I’m doing now.

Honestly, I think I relax more at the day job.

You develop a love/hate relationship with overtime, and money in general

Maybe this one’s just me, but it’s still something I struggle with. My job offers overtime, most of the time. We don’t have to take it, but we can.

On the one hand, I love picking up overtime, because the money is good. And we can always use money. The monsters always need clothes, I want to go on vacation, the bills are crazy, we need so many things and food is freaking expensive.

But overtime takes away time you could be spending with your babies, or on your real passion, writing. Even now I feel bad working more, because I never feel like I’m spending enough time with my monsters. I always feel like I should write more.

I haven’t found a happy balance, so if anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

Not a lot of people really want to help you

Again, maybe this is just me, but my family was not super supportive when I had my monster. I got little to no help, and in fact was generally treated as though I’d done something very bad. No one had any intention of helping me with my mistake. And if they did help, I had better be damned grateful because they didn’t have to help, and I should remember that.

Indie writing isn’t as bad. Lots of successful indie writers want to help, much like other single parents want to help other single parents. But generally, most people are not going to be doing you any favors in the indie business.

All this is hilarious, given the next thing you want to remember.

Even though most people really don’t want to help you, everyone wants to tell you how to do what you’re doing

Boy, do they ever want to tell you how to do what you’re doing. Even if they’ve never been a single parent, or an indie writer. They want to tell you.

You shouldn’t let your daughter watch that movie. You should have a newsletter. You should be working more, or less. You should put your books on Amazon. You should dress her more like a girl. You shouldn’t talk about yourself on your blog. You shouldn’t cut her hair. You shouldn’t do your own cover artwork. You should take her to church, but not that church. You should have a huge following before you publish.

Please, if you get nothing else from this post, please learn to listen to advice with your head and your heart, not your fear and guilt. I can’t tell you how many things I did my first few years as a mommy because people told me I should. I was too afraid that I was screwing everything up to question whether what they were telling me was good for me and my little family or not. You all know the amount of crap I’ve tried, and failed at, with my writing career, because someone I admired told me it was a good or bad idea.

You will multitask like you breath.

Write rough drafts while supervising quiet play. Wash dishes while dinner is simmering. Edit on your lunch break. Write social media updates while the monsters watch cartoons. This is my life. I’ve learned what can be multitask-ed and what needs to have my full attention, after some pretty painful trial and error. But successful multitasking is a required skill for both the single parent and the indie writer.

Some of the best things happen in laundromats

I got a washer and dryer when we moved into the house, and I can’t even tell you how much joy this has brought me. Especially with a puppy who wets the bed. But part of me kinds of misses going to laundromats. I don’t even know why this is a thing, but some magical things happen at those places. I have had some amazing talks with my monster while we waited for the spin cycle. On the infrequent occasions when I went alone, I got some awesome writing done. I don’t even know why, but trust the magic of the laundromats.

There’s no such thing as according to plan

If you haven’t learned this yet, know that this is something indie writers and single parents live by. Rain drowns out park trips, people bail on you, computers die at the worst times, kids get sick. I have all these lovely deadlines for myself, but then things happen and I can’t realistically meet them. I have the best of intentions to get the whole kitchen cleaned up, and then I just can’t do that. Have back up plans, have contingency funds if you can save them up. If you can do it at all, start saving towards a $1,000 emergency fund. Plan for everything to go to shit, basically, and don’t feel like a failure when it does.

You can learn as much as you want, and you will still never feel like you know what you’re doing

And there is so much to learn! Countless books, blogs, classes, podcasts and magazines about indie writing and single parenting. You could start reading right now and never get through all of the information. (Theoretically. Really, when you break down all of this information, it’s usually the same info again and again.)

I learn everything I can, especially now while I’m still learning to be an indie writer. I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. I’ve been a mom for 12 years now. I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. It’s an anxiety that I will never get over.

You have got to put some energy into self care

This is not a joke. I know I just told you that I’ve been pulling some all nighters recently, and I know better!

I’m actually going to do a whole blog post about self care, it’s varying levels, and some tips to help you make sure you’re taking care of you on Sunday, so I’ll not go into it right now. But make you a priority, girls and guys. Insist up on it, or you’ll burn out. Some nights, when I was a single mom and suffering from more than a little postpartum depression, my version of self care was eating Oreos while binge watching Futurama. Was it healthy? Not physically. But it was about the only time I let myself just not accomplish anything. It was the only time I put down the to do list and just relaxed. So, mentally, it was very healthy.

Remember, you’re a superhero

One day you’re going to be in a position to look back on this time in your life. When you do, you’ll likely have a healthy child or a completed published book in your possession. You’re going to look at this time, and everything you did, and you’re going to have one question; How in the hell did you live through that?

How did you get through all the crazy work and worry? How did you get anything at all done? How did you just not spend those years in a crappy sweater, eating dry cereal at the end of the day? Most of all, how did you end up with this actual person, or real life book you’ve got now?

I’ll tell you how. You’re strong, and brave. You worked hard, and you deserve to feel proud. So feel proud now, and know that this isn’t how your whole life’s going to be.

It’s all worth it, in the end. I promise.

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It Takes Time To Be a Writer

Happy Mothers Day, to all Mammas, Step Moms, Mother In Laws, and anyone who’s been a maternal influence.

We’ve been lied to, all of us aspiring writers. Oh, it was with the best of intentions, as most lies are. But it was a lie, all the same. We have been told that it doesn’t take nearly as much time as we all think to become a great writer. We have been told, over and over, if we can devote whatever spare minutes we have in a day, we will prevail. We will become writers.

Well, I shouldn’t say that it’s a total lie. Every good lie has a kernel of truth, after all. If you are just trying to become a writer, short stories work very well in small segments of time. Even novel length manuscripts can be written like that. Sure, it can, I’ve done it. Often my short stories are written between calls at my day job. I’ve said the same thing. If you are establishing a writing routine in your life, and all you have is maybe five minutes while your little one takes a nap, or 15 minutes on the bus to work, you slay that time! You make that story, because it’s better than nothing. Yes, you can write a whole book, minutes at a time. And if you’re writing, you’re a writer.

But I’ve learned better. if you intend to do something with your writing, then it’s going to take more than little sips of time. And everyone needs to stop telling this lie, because it’s hurting writers.

It doesn’t take into account editing

If you’ve never sat down, and edited a long piece of work, this might be something you’re not aware of, but you can’t just edit a page at a time and expect awesome results. For one thing, you’ve got to see your piece as a whole so you can find and patch plot holes. Usually, when I’m rough drafting I can’t remember half of what happened in part one by the time I get to part three. So if I put a gun on the mantle, I forgot that it needed to go off. It can also be frustrating as hell. You read a flawed paragraph, and you free write to fix it. Then you don’t get to write it until later. I know, when this has happened to me, I’ve forgotten my brilliant fix by that time. Generally I try to not edit unless I’ll have at least an hour to commit to the project.

It doesn’t take into account submitting

When you’re looking for an agent or editor to send your work to, prepare to spend a lot of time online. Don’t forget that before an agent accepts you, you have to accept them. Do they represent your genre? Have they had successful sales recently? What’s their standing on Predators and Editors? Then, there’s the query writing process, which should not be rushed. Again, this can take up to an hour, at least, if you’ve been doing it awhile.

It doesn’t take into account learning about the craft

If you’re a writer, you’ve also got to be a reader. Read books for pleasure, yes, but also to learn from them. Read articles to learn, listen to podcasts. This takes time, man, lots of time. Sure, you can dip into a book for five minutes or so, but if you intend to finish the book there had better be a lot of five minute increments built into you day.

Not just learning, but practicing. Free writing, trying to write from a different POV, learning poetry forms, all of this takes time. And if you short change your practice, you short change your writing career.

It doesn’t take into account marketing

I don’t spend as much time on marketing and self promotion as I should, most likely. I’m getting better at it, but there are so many things to do. I send my book to book review sights, pitch it on social media, run ad campaigns, and all the other crap I do to make sure people hear about my books. It takes time, and traditional writers have to do a lot of this too, your publisher won’t always do it for you. Most writers have websites or blogs they maintain, like myself. PBW accounts for about four hours a week, easy. You might say that marketing isn’t really writing, and you’re totally right. But how else will anyone hear about your book? Sure, word of mouth is great, but it’s hard to get that when no one has read it at all.

It doesn’t take into account all the insane little things like getting a bar code, compiling a story into a book, or the hours and hours you can spend designing a damned cover.

I spent nearly a week preparing Days to be published. Not a week full of five minutes here and there, a week of two to four hours at a time working. It required time, it required focus. It required my monsters to be in school. I then spent hours getting everything on the Gumroad and Tablo websites. It wasn’t hard work, but it was time consuming work, and certainly not something I could have done a little at a time.

It discourages us from making serious lifestyle changes that could allow for better, longer writing sessions.

Deciding to be a writer, not as a hobby but as a career, is a commitment. And the further you get into it, the more it will demand of your time. For me, that meant I had to cut some things out of my life to make room for it. I cut my addiction to time management games, I stopped reading as many comic books, I narrowed the time I spend watching tv. Once I started valuing my writing time, I stopped talking to some people that, quite frankly, it was better for me to not talk to. I still spend time with the people I value. Not as much as I’d like, but that’s because of time and work constraints.

Not only have I cut bad habits out of my life, I’ve added good ones. I commit to writing time in the morning before work. I bring my writing with me, and work on it whenever I have time.

I’m really glad that I did all of those things. Writing has brought fulfillment to my life in such a way that nothing else but my children ever did. I miss my comic books, but it’s worth it to me.

Another thing I want you to keep in mind is that while I might be able to commit to an hour, five minutes at a time, I probably won’t get as much writing done as if I sat down for a whole hour and wrote. I didn’t have to stop and start so many times. Now, if I have just five minutes, I’ll take them. But I reach for those longer sessions, and I do what I need to to get them.

It makes us feel guilty that we’re not producing more

And this is the worst one, in my opinion. Telling people, “I did this, and I did it with just the end bits of time through my day,” makes some people, including me, feel guilty. What am I doing wrong that I can’t do the same thing? Why are her five minutes more productive than mine? Am I just stupid, what the hell is wrong with me?

No, stop that. Nothing is wrong with you, that person is lying. It’s the same mentality that makes people put on a full face of make up, take a selfie, then post it with a #nofilter #Iwokeuplikethis. No you didn’t you liar. We just all think we should be effortlessly beautiful, productive, patient and tidy. Well let me tell you, it’s not happening at my house, and probably not at yours either. If I’m going to have a productive day, I have to be up by 6:30 at the latest, at my desk by 7:00 and off to work by 9:15. Now, if I don’t manage that, I’ll fit in time whenever I can, but I really push to manage that. I have to.

Please, don’t think that this means that you don’t have the time to be a writer. It’s very likely that you do. And if all the time you have to give to it right now is five minutes, give that time. But you’re going to need more that than eventually. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is a liar.

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The Real Life Writer

So, when I started writing out a theme for last month, I ran into a bit of a snag. I thought that journalism was a great theme, and it turned out to be so. But I really had to stretch to find post ideas for all four weeks. I think I did pretty well, but I don’t like to have to write what I feel is ‘filler work’. I won’t tell you which piece I wrote last month that would fall under that category, because I feel like all of them turned out pretty strong. But I think the month would have been stronger if I hadn’t had to do that.

This month, I had the opposite problem. I sat down with my list of post ideas, and I saw a theme right away.

Real Life Writing

It’s perfect. It’s all about living your life as a writer in today’s world. All kinds of ideas popped out at me, from presenting yourself as a creative professional, to running your home efficiently so that you have more time to write, to what tools I use on a daily basis to work. It was clear, to me, that I wasn’t going to fit all of this in one month. This is two months, at least.

So I decided to change things up.

From now on, a theme will last here on Paper Beats World for as long as I have ideas to write about. If you have any questions or suggestions that you’d like me to write about in any given theme, please let me know at nicolecluttrell86@Gmail.com. I’ll be happy to hear from you, and I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about the Real Life Writer. I think we have a lot to share with each other. I’d love to hear from you, what you do in your real life. Please let us know!

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