Write From Karen

Absolutely Bananas’ prompt for this week is: Back to Mom.

I love this prompt because I think moms are too quick to write off their own interests and “down” time all for the sake of achieving perfect mom status.

Which is impossible to do when your kids are small, however, when they get to be teenagers, that perfect mom award? Within grasp.

Okay, ya’ll know I’m teasing. The whole perfect mom persona? Doesn’t exist – so don’t knock yourself out trying to achieve that goal – it’s impossible.

Instead, concentrate on carving out little pockets of mom time. And don’t feel guilty! Your kids/husband also benefit from time away from you so it’s truly a win-win situation.

Now that the kids are back-to-school full time and we’re heading into the fourth week of school, things are settling down on my homestead and I’m free to start thinking about what I both love and hate to do in my spare time – write.

There is SOMETHING about fall that gets me in the mood to write. I think it’s the crisp, refreshing weather that both invigorates and motivates me to pack my laptop case and head outdoors to write.

OR, it could be that NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I’m mentally preparing myself to write 50,000 words in 30 days. (This will be my fourth time playing and WILL be my fourth time winning the challenge).

When fall rolls around, I’m mentally ready to face my imagination once again. I have so many story ideas floating around in my head I’m not quite sure where to start. And I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to write in November, which means I need to get on the ball and start (tentatively) outlining my story.

So, back to mom means back to writing for me. I bought a new laptop satchel the other day:

And I can’t WAIT to haul it off to the library, the park, the coffee house or even in our own backyard and into our camper and use it. (I often have to shut myself off in the camper on the weekends in November to get away from my family. I have to have it absolutely quiet when I write. Which doesn’t really make sense when you figure I take it to the library – though I use the study rooms, which are not really helpful considering there’s always some busy body in the next room using his/her cell phone and talking too loudly, or the coffee house where there’s a ton of activity around me, but it’s different when it’s not FAMILY noise – does that make sense?)

And speaking of writing, I’m thinking of starting another writing meme on Thursday – I post a Thursday Thread story anyway, I thought it might be fun to invite everyone to join me. I’ll be posting a variety of things to prompt you – a post card from PostSecret, a crazy (and true) headline, a sentence, a Creative Commons picture from Flickr, a few words, just a variety of fun things to help jump-start your imagination.

Oh, one more thing, in case you’re wondering what that keyboard-looking thing is in my satchel?

That’s a Neo. And in essence, it’s a word processor without the bells and whistles. I sometimes pull that out when I find myself spending more time surfing the web than actually writing when I’m out and about. It’s expensive, but if you’re serious about wanting to get some writing done, I HIGHLY recommend it. It comes with a USB cable, so when you’re ready to transfer your work to your PC, you just plug it into one of your USB ports and it transfers to your writing program. Super easy, fast and efficient. I love it!