Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Silent Night--no! The Kids are Gone!



Back to School Already?


For most everyone, our kids are away for the day already, brightening their young minds with treasures of education. What is that I hear? Silence? What is that? It sounds so . . . so quiet! Is something wrong?


No! The kids are at school! Wow, what to do now. Clean or write? I am laughing. Why write of course! Do you know how long it has been to have a house this silent? An endless amount of time stretching before me so that I can indulge myself in my tale-spinning? How thrilling!


School, in our neck of the woods here in northern Utah, hasn’t quite started yet. I am like the kids in the famous poem, T’was the Night Before Christmas:

The backpacks were hung by the front door with care,

In hopes that early school morning soon would be there;

The writing mamas were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of whipping up plots danced in their heads . . .

Can you feel the anticipation, ripe and ready to pick? I can. I can feel my creative side biting at the bit, so anxious to freely write. (Writing late into the night this past month has seemed nigh impossible with so many familial goings-on cooking around me.)


I know there are those of us with preschoolers toddling—or even rolling around—the house. Maybe squeeze in some writing time during a nap? Their favorite one-hour educational show on the public viewing station? Yes!


What are your thoughts and what writing projects do you have in mind as soon as you send the last child off to school?

8 comments:

  1. Great poem. I look forward to the day when all my children are off at school, and I can write in that silent house, but unfortunately that is a long, long time from now.

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  2. My 15 year old started school last Thursday and it's almost been too quite around here. I spent all summer anticipating the peace I would get when school started and now I miss him. I am getting some editing and rewrites done though, so that's good.

    Great Post Elizabeth!

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  3. I find that my children are my muses and hate it when they go away. Fortunately for me this year they all insisted that they be home schooled! Yippee! Crazy to some I know(I'm told that at every turn) but silence makes me crazy. It's like listening to the buzzing of florescent lights. But! This is coming from a mother of 5 (6 in 3 months) so I am a bit off the norm. Be it what it may, kids home or away, find inspiration in all things. Life is exciting and waiting for you to dive in :) If kids being at school jump starts your writing then go for it, love it and do it :)

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  4. Yeah, I got all four kids in school, then went back to college, graduated with my AA, and now this year, I'm working. So having the kids gone was very short lived. Since I'm working at home the house is nice and quiet, but it's really hard to try to write in between phone calls while I work. The interruptions make it hard to get inspired again. It's worse than the kids!! At least I can ignore them! Just kidding!!

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  5. Yes, it's been a silent party at my house since Monday and so much writing is getting done. So happy!

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  6. I used to look forward to that magnanimous day when the kids would depart and leave me in silence… And then I moved to NYC. Grr-ness. I tell you what though, even around home schooling, (which surprisingly is a lot more lax than astringent public schools—and much more productive,) writing time is possible, although silence may not be.

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  7. Before my kids were school age I created a window of me time. I called it quiet time. I centered it around my youngest one's nap schedule to where all of them would spend an hour of their time in their respective bedrooms reading picture books, building lego castles, drawing...anything so long as it didn't burn the house down.
    Though the time went fast, I always was able to add many new pages to my novel and looked forward when it was bedtime to continue!

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  8. Since school started I feel like I've had less time to write. I can't write first thing in the morning (unless I want to get up at 4) because I have to get everyone off to school. I usually write in the afternoons anyways, and now that gets cut off early when the children arrive home from school and need me to sign forms and help them remember to carry the three. Summer's my writing time.

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