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Housework & Writing

Housework! It takes away from your precious writing time. If you are the Super-Mom type, then stop reading this and get back to dusting your baseboards. This article is for those people who would rather have a half hour of root canal than to take all day making sure little Tommy looks like the child model for the Sears catalogue.

Unfortunately, housework is part of the bargain you struck when you got married and/or had kids. None of this “I am a successful author like Joan Collins who has a maid and I can sit around in an evening gown all day with fresh flowers by my chaise lounge”. Even if you are a full-time writer, as I am, you are more than likely sitting at your computer, still in a t-shirt that doubles as pajamas, with your coffee pot bubbling and burping your second pot. And, no doubt, you were foolish enough to give birth to the most selfish people in the world who don’t understand that Mother Dearest has another job besides making macaroni with wieners. They are also messy little creatures. (We will leave the husband out of this for now.) Or you may have decided you have to work outside the home so these self-same creatures don’t share your life as a starving author. That will really cut into your writing time.

No matter. The thing is, you have to be hygienic and keep the house clean enough to avoid the town Health Inspector from condemning your home. So whether you are a working mom or a full time writer, the housework has to be done! If you are working outside the home and only have two free hours a day to write, why waste them on housework? 

As a full time writer, I’m the greatest procrastinator in the world. Sometimes, doing the laundry is vastly preferable to sitting in front of my blank computer monitor with a moronic look on my face. When I look at the kitchen counter (at least I think it’s my counter, since I haven’t seen it for days) with the overflowing pile of dishes there, it’s the perfect excuse for me to not write. 

So, here are a few tips to help with this dilemma:

1. First thing in the morning, gather up your laundry and sort it. It should take you about 15 minutes, tops, especially if you don’t mind throwing your reds in with your blacks. Get your load of whites in first to make sure you have enough hot water, and for heaven’s sake don’t forget to throw in a compliment of some detergent. (Been there, done that!)
2. Sit down and check your email to see if anyone has either sent you some jobs for the local magazine, say, an article on being the perfect mother and wife. You can fake that, if you’re any good. Or maybe some publisher is promising you an hour’s interview with Oprah to review your book that hasn’t even been sent in yet, but a good friend called and alerted that it was the best thing since “Gone With the Wind”! Dream on!
3. Bring up the chapter you were working on, or the article that was due yesterday. It needs polishing more than your windows do!
4. About 45 minutes later, get those whites in the dryer and get your jeans in the washer. If you want to hang them on the line, forget it, you’re crazy! Use Bounce if you want that phony fresh air smell. Kids and husbands don’t notice anyway!
5. Do more tweaking on that darn article and ignore the phone; it’s your editor throwing a fit because it’s late.
6. About noon , make some lunch, throw your whites in the basket, throw your colours in the dryer, and put your dishes in the sink to soak.
7. After eating, do that load of dishes, and leave them in the drain board. Not neat, but hey, they’re clean!
8. Spend the afternoon finishing up that article and sending it in. This should quiet down the phone calls. No soap operas on the TV, they are addictive and your article on gun cleaning for Sports Illustrated will result in a drama. Now it’s time to either work on the next project or get to work on your masterpiece of a book that has taken, so far, six months to get up to chapter 8 edited and ready. Only twenty more chapters to go.
9. Quit when the kids come home. Working when kids are around is like sleeping five feet from a busy railway track; it doesn’t work.
10. While you’re watching CSI, fold the clothes. It doesn’t matter if you put them away; it’s easier for your “human litter” to find them on the back of the couch anyway. It’s not like they actually put them away, either!
11. After everyone is in bed, turn off the TV, put on the music you like to listen to, and write, write, write. This is your extra hour of work time, and God help any little pitter-patter of feet into your space requesting a drink of water. Send them to the bathroom to suck it out the tap!  

I would suggest you try to get the members of your household to help you out, even if it’s a token request. Like, yeah, like, that’s going to happen?

Switch the days when the laundry pile is only two feet high as opposed to the usual five, and take this time to scrub down the toilet, or give the kitchen floor a lick and a promise with your trusty mop. Don’t bother being a perfectionist, keep that for your writing; your goal is to prevent illness and little creatures from taking over your house.  I will not win any awards from Good Housekeeping anytime soon, but at least we’re clean and functioning.

Give up that afternoon coffee you used to have with friends. Or, have it once a week. Resign from some of the committees you may belong to, unless they promise work to you as a freelancer coming your way. Keep the freebies you give out to a minimum. Give the first one free and then give them a discount on what you write for them after. But those committees take valuable time from your writing as well, so whatever is not essential to your well-being or your kids, resign! 

A layer of dust on your bookshelves can wait until you have more free time, if that ever happens. If you are new to freelancing, you may indeed have several extended periods between assignments. That is the time to tackle it, but certainly not when your email box is filled with offers.

Sometimes, housework can actually be a benefit; for example, you have struck a difficult spot in your chapter, and you are not sure how to progress. Doing the dishes is such a mundane task that it will allow you run the problem through your head. When you have your Eureka moment, drop the dishcloth and get it down in a note to yourself, as a prompt for when you can get back to your computer.

So, there you go. There may actually be creative time during housework! Heck, I started to write this article while I was trying to get out the mud stains from my son’s last adventure with his friend’s quad!

Lead BookAdz Interviewer, S.L. Bartlett, has written several editorials and freelance items for her local and county newspaper, as well as satirical essays. Bartlett is also a book reviewer for BookAdz and a staff writer for Silver Moon Magazine.

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