Writing and parenting

I woke up this morning with the intention of writing, having been awake till 01:30 am trying to write with the TV on as background noise. This is the only time I can concentrate on writing as the rest of my day up till 10pm is occupied by errant children.

Anyway, those same children have forced me awake at 8am, by jumping up and down on the bed, my long suffering wife isn't here she is in their room having had to cope with one of the nightmares about monsters.

Sometimes I think this is my fault as I write about monsters, but this is just projection.

The children demand to be tickled, but I am not allowed to tickle them under the arms, on the neck, on the feet, or the back of the knees. I settle for the side of the body, but my eldest clamps her arms down and says I am breaking the rules.

Finally I get up and make them an easy cereal breakfast, infuse myself with a coffee pick me up whilst realising I shouldn't really be writing but cleaning up. I just can't bring myself to do it. This morning.

I settle into write, which I have to do on one of the small child chairs they use to sit on to eat breakfast, as I am unwilling as yet to give up this comfortable sofa seat.

I write for 5 minutes, in fact I write what you have just read. This five minutes was a godsend for as I wrote I got to imagine my characters, my plots, and my stories. 5 minutes of escape.

The things I imagine, are what the loathsome Golem is feeling today? How will Erin cope with carrying its child(in the third book I have imagined but written nothing for!), How will the Wanderer, my main protagonist make their way across the world to the mysterious lands of Iran, which I have never visited but hold some fascination for me.

Then my eldest comes in and demands her child seat back, and the imaginings end. For now.

Life descends.

It is a whirling chaos, in which I barely cope as we scramble to get them ready to go out, it takes a full 30 minutes to convince them that they should go out instead of gluing there eyes to electronic media of one persuasion or another.

When we are finally ready we hie ourselves to a local community centre, this is for me the best place on earth. I cringe a little as I say that, for I doubt my 20 year old self would see it that way, they would look and say.

No way!

Here, I can write more as the children can run around like crazies in the open space of the community hall, I can settle down to write a little, I get the feeling I am being anti-social as there is a community there. The clues in the name.

They want to chat, They want to play games, They want to discuss the issues.

I am writing about my character on a lonely moor, by himself with just the soft wind, the stars, and admittedly some scary looking spirits. Right now, nothing is more scary than the demands of the children who have seen an array of available sweets, snacks and treats.

The finality of saying No! Feels like moving a mountain sometimes, it requires an effort that has been drained from me over the years, and I cannot muster sufficient strength to do so right now. So they get what they want.

This is a roller ball sweet drink which will blow their heads off, and a gelatinous goop that is laughingly called a jelly.

As such my adventurer on the moor is one of my only escapes, it is a joy imagining that peace.