Priorities

Wednesday is always our busiest day with the business, so off to Worthing Council today.  But I am aware that the deadline for the “Make ‘em Laugh” competition in the February edition of the Writing Magazine is the 15^th of February, I’m cutting it fine.  I hoped to have a couple of hours in the afternoon but then I get the call from the junior school - Jessica is ill.  Why didn’t I let her take her party invitations in today!  Party crikes forgot about that, so I order some party supplies online, and take way too much time checking out all the different sites for the pretend savings that p&p will destroy.

Abigail has brought home lots of homework and I maintain a strict same day policy which is tough but means that she gets weekends free.  I take pity on her and weigh out her ingredients for home economics, I mean food tech. (What a stupid name. There are lots of things technical in this world food isn’t one of them, you put it in your mouth and eat it.)   Then I listen to her read her homework ‘Do all heroes have to be good?’ using quotes from the Bugsy Malone play.  I’m tempted to write the homework myself, but I think it’s an assessed piece and I use to hate it when parents did their child’s homework.

Add the fact that I’m arranging a Write Out Day to watch The Woman in Black at Cineworld in Chichester for my writers group The Writers @ Lovedean and trying to get a rough idea of numbers.  Ideally I would like us to go in before it’s open to look in the empty screens. I think buildings, schools, shops factories have a different feel without people and hopefully it will inspire us all to think about atmosphere in our writing.  Yeah right!  We tend to get a bit silly when we go out.   

It would be so easy now to slide into watching TV for the rest of the evening.  I have to accept that I probably don’t have time to tweak my story as much as I would like.  I will never put my writing before my children’s welfare but seriously is bringing a sick child a glass of juice and paracetamol while they strain their neck to watch telly and ordering a bit of party ware online a reason not to push forward your dream?  How many times have I pulled an all nighter for work or to get a child’s costume ready?  I’m not saying that writing is my number one priority – but how do I at least keep it a priority with work and family commitments?