Ahhh... The Writing Life

When I was a kid, I loved watching that Roseanne Barr movie, She-Devil. Meryl Streep’s character, Mary Fischer, was a Danielle Steele-esque romance novelist who lived in a huge pink house by the ocean, had a fabulous wardrobe, and spent her days writing on her veranda.

I thought, that’s so the life for me.

So here’s the reality of being a romance writer.

I get up at 5:45 every morning, usually to the cranky rumblings of a 16-month-old who REALLY doesn’t appreciate wet shorts. I get him and his five-year-old sister ready for school, get ready for work, kiss my fan-freaking-tastic husband, David, goodbye and drive the kids to school.

I work full-time a national medical society, writing and editing our quarterly newsletter, coordinating ads, and sending an incredible number of e-mails. I really like my co-workers, who love teasing me about my “secret night life.”

I pick the kids up, get them home around 5:40. Usually, David had dinner going. Seriously, the man is a saint. He takes on more than his share of the housework, which he says is only fair since I basically have two full-time jobs. We've been together since I was 14 and he was 16, dating seven years before we got married. We had plenty of time to work out the whole "expectations of married life" thing. I failed to mention my ambition to become a vampire romance queen. Still, David's a really good sport about hanging out at romance book festivals. He calls himself my "willing trophy husband." You have to love that.

There’s usually a mad nightly scramble to get the kids fed, wash dishes, get our daughter’s homework done, and get the kids reasonably bathed. Seriously, on spaghetti night, I think we would be better off taking our son out back and hosing him off. The kids are tucked in by 8. I try to spend a little bit of time with David, so he doesn’t feel totally abandoned to my wild ambition. And then I settle down to work.

I don’t have a home office or a desk. I write from my couch, usually watching something like Castle or The Office. From my little spot, I can usually see our son’s Mickey Mouse ride-along train, and the 70-year-old rocking chair that used to grace the parlor at my great-grandparents dairy farm. There’s generally a strange grouping of naked Polly Pockets on the floor and a load of laundry thumping on the other side of the wall.

Super glamorous.

I write every single day, at least 1,000 words a day, no matter what. Even when I'm sick, tired, stressed, I get those 1,000 words in. They don't even have to be brilliant. I can go back and fix them. Just the discipline of making time and building a story, that's what matters. I have to admit that it helps that I have a newspaper background. When I was reporting, I couldn't exactly wait around for the muse to strike when I had an angry editor standing over me, demanding to know when I was turning in my story. You learn to get beyond the need to get "inspired" and just write.

I generally work from about 8:30 to 11 or 12, depending on how well things are going. If it's really flowing, I'll stay up until 2 or 3. But I try not to do that too often, because I'm not all that sharp at work the next day.

I'm not going to lie. Between working, wrangling two children under six and being married to someone I adore, but can’t spend a lot of time with, it's tough. But it's all about the routine, developing the discipline.

In other words, Meryl Streep is a lying beeotch.