As a single mum with two day jobs, it is exceptionally hard to find the time or energy to write. I have one child at primary school, one at secondary, with different start/finish times. Their – and therefore my – involvement at state and national level in the sport of diving is time consuming for us all, as is my main day job organising seminars and events. To make things more interesting, I recently started an e-commerce business with my significant other, selling fancy dress costumes over the internet!

There are too many demands, none of which leave much space for writing.

Until recently, I just made the time anyway, and whether it was for half an hour while the girls were at diving training, or at 11.30pm when the costume business had been put to bed, I always tried to write for at least a short while every day.

So what has changed? Lately, every time I sit down at the computer, I am racked by a fit of ‘the guilts’. I should be putting on another load of washing to get ahead for tomorrow. I should be checking out our costume competition on the web, designing a new Google ad, analysing visitor trends to the Costume Illusions website, reviewing the checklist for tomorrow’s seminar to ensure I haven’t forgotten anything, ringing my mum, feeding the cat… the list goes on and on.

So I open my work in progress, look at it for a couple of minutes, then sigh and close it down.

On my priority list, writing has become firmly entrenched at the bottom.

But as corny as it sounds, without writing I’m simply not complete. And I’ve decided it is time to take back control of my life. Rein it in just a little, so that the part of me that needs to write, can.

This blog is the first step in that process, and from here I have a whole afternoon ahead of me. The significant other has been banished back to his house, the children are out with friends, the family are on notice not to call, the washing is done  and Costume Illusions… well, its Sunday, damn it, and everyone deserves a day off.

So I’m closing now with the blog, and I’m going from here to open my work in progress, and to keep it open, for as long as it takes to get back into the swing of writing…

That sense of guilt can go to Hell.

I am a writer.