We’ve been getting a lot of rain lately, several weeks worth actually. Water is gathering on our side walk, and pooling there for days because the ground is so saturated. But the last two days have been dry and warm, so off to the lake we went to water ski.

The lake we usually go to was over capacity and the ramp was unsafe, so we headed for one further away but likely to be able to put our boat in.  We arrived and it looked great. I drove the boat off the trailer and my husband parked the truck. It wasn’t long before I was idling toward the dock to pick him up and head out into the wide lake while he prepped for skiing. Once he sat down, I increased the throttle and headed off for one of our favorite parts of the lake where we were sure to find smooth water. But I hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when I had to slow the boat and turn the wheel this way and that to avoid sinkers (logs floating just beneath the surface and not favorable to boats racing along).

My husband ever positive that there is a place on the lake for him to ski encouraged me onward. At first I complied, picking up speed and straining to pick out the telltale signs of a branch poking up from a hidden log positioned to hole our hull. I pulled back on the throttle after going halfway across the lake and got ready to turn into the arm we favored.  By then my husband was standing up in the boat, watching out over the canopy for sinkers he might need to warn me about. The boat speed kept the bow tipped up, so in order to see, I had been propped up on one knee and turned sideways in my seat so I could see over the windshield that was low cut and interfering with my view when I sat. My leg was starting to feel the strain of holding me on the seat, and my foot was wedged awkwardly against the seat back. There was no adjustment I could make without giving up the best view of the water ahead. I was certain we would not be skiing today, and I knew my husband would have to drive for himself to come to terms with that, besides my leg was beginning to cramp. It had been a long winter.

I told him to take over. He did without a word, driving the boat all the way into the arm, searching for a clear place to ski. But the lake was studded with sinkers and short thick branches and gnarled knots of wood floating every ten feet as though someone had applied a grid.

We played about dodging the long limbs and knots for an hour. Then we headed back in, put the boat on the trailer and resigned ourselves to not skiing for at least a couple weeks, if the rains were done.

As we drove home, I realized that this was the perfect metaphor for my writing this year. I had been steering around various obstacles: work, getting a college-bound high school senior organized for graduation, visiting my dementia-suffering mother, and taking care of this and that. I hadn’t any time to write and had to wait for the weather of life to abate a bit. So now I am here writing again and certain my planned date of publication for my fourth Students of Jump book was now delayed and my plans to fully draft my first contemporary fiction would have to be reconsidered.

It looks like the sky will be dry for awhile and life’s obstacles are looking sparse as well. So I am back to writing and hope all of you have clear skies, too.

#rain
#writing
#obstacles 

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Write when you can.  Be there the rest of the time

All writers juggle their private and public lives with their writing lives.  It doesn’t matter if they write for a living or write part time.  Yesterday, I had a rare day free from any after-work demand from my job.  I had a post for my blog to write, and the possible chance that I could work on Book 4 of my Students of Jump series during that open evening.  All in all getting home and working on my computer was definitely one of the options open to me.  But it was not to be, and I knew that at the start of my day.

My daughter had a project to do for a scholar’s program she was accepted into.  That project called for her gathering quite a few pictures, audio and video together.  Normally, this is not a problem.  We have a computer we used to use, before we got out of the business, for wedding videography loaded with all the necessary software and support features needed.  But technology is not always reliable, and the monitor started intermittently failing.   It is not hard to figure out what sort of delaying factor this had on her project.  We worked for hours nursing this monitor along from the time school let out and her midnight deadline arrived.

I was there for advice, instruction in software usage and emotional support as that monitor raised her stress level.  Fearful of  finding herself with a two-minute film imprisoned on a hard drive we could not access, she was working from a flash drive which slowed her progress as well.  But when we came close to the deadline and she had completed the video, we switched to another computer to upload the rendered product.  You’re probably wondering why we just didn’t shift the software to another computer. Well, it’s been some years since we were videographers and that software is old and cannot work with Windows 7 or 8.  She was managing with the oldest computer in the house because she had no choice.

Usually it takes a few days to hear back how she scored on a project.  Today we arrived home, and she checked her email to find she had been notified that her grade was posted.  My daughter told her father and I about the notification then accessed her grade book.  The nervousness she was feeling was evident in her grip on her iPod and how she turned away from looking at its screen.

If I wasn’t nervous myself, it would have been funny watching her slowly turn her head back toward the image, her eyes squeezed as though anticipating having something thrown at her as she tried to make out her grade.  With a dramatic “Oh, my, God,” she threw back her head and leaned against the back of her chair, a picture of sudden enervation.  We weren’t sure how to interpret her response and asked how she did.  To avoid bragging, I’ll just say she did very, very well.  Neither of us had much sleep last night, and there was some uncertainty about what was actually wanted, so I would have clapped my hands over just about any grade.  She had reason to be pleased.

So you found me out. This is one long excuse for not posting my weekly Wednesday post this morning.  But tired as I am, and though I did not get to work on my book and went through a school day feeling a bit fuzzy and running on my “I’m not a tired teacher” gear, I’m glad I was there for my girl. 

Family, friends, work: we write in and among, around and through these demands every day.  Sometimes they are big events; some inconvenient; some, like this activity, part of being a mom.  All of these are part of being a writer.

What have you had to write through and around?  What moments are you thankful for that got in the way of writing but left you feeling proud you were part of it?  Tell me your tale of distraction/connection.

The post The other half of a writer’s life: family, friends, the other work first appeared on L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author.