Economizing

            To keep good on my renewed promise to write in my blog weekly, I have to be realistic. I’m a time-poor mother of now two boys and I no longer have the luxury of writing whenever I want. Or as much as I want. The same, of course, goes for showers.

            So how to manage editing my whopper of a memoir, copy-editing academic articles, collaborating on a film project and writing blog entries? As it is, many simpler tasks seem nearly impossible to squeeze into everyday life: keeping in regular touch with family in the States, sending emails, cleaning the toilet, reading books.

If I want to write, then something has to give. The first to go is obviously sleep, but from experience I can say with certainty that that sacrifice barely covers the more urgent (and bill-paying) copy-editing. I’m unwilling to sacrifice the showers altogether. And skipping meals is pointless: as it is, I already eat standing at the kitchen counter while serving a finicky four-year-old, washing dishes and answering calls from time-share pushers and soul-savers.

            Clearly, one obvious solution is multitasking. It’s no exaggeration when I say that as I’m writing this now I’m also rocking the baby, eating leftovers for lunch and ironing my husband’s shirts. But what I gain in efficiency I seem to lose in quality. The baby doesn’t fall into a deep enough sleep, I drip salad dressing on my pants and possibly the business shirts, and the writing…well, the writing. You can judge that yourself.

            Another solution is to be less of a perfectionist. Laxer with punctuation, less fastidious about synonyms, a bit more flexible with grammar. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen.

            This leads me to the only logical conclusion. Brevity. Economy of words. And some incomplete sentences. At least when writing my blog.
 

Fewer words. Lord knows it would do me good…and possibly be a relief to my readers. Unless you have any other tips?