I feel guilty. And embarrassed. And like I need to make up for lost time. See, I finished a book and met my deadline. The companion to MOXIE AND THE ART OF RULE BREAKING was due February 15, and I had to--ya know, finish the book. And this is when writing--the thing I most love doing--gets really, really awful. It gets really awful for two reasons: 1.) because I hate writing a draft more than I hate certain dental procedures (true story) and 2.) because I end up feeling like a super self-indulgent awful human being while I'm doing it. So even though there's reason to celebrate: OMG, I finished my FIFTH BOOK!--sixth, if you count the one in my drawer that will never be published--I still feel bad.

The drafting stuff I've talked about before, and will happily do another post about in another week, once I've forgotten the pain.

But I've never written about the guilt and awfulness.

Writing book takes time. Lots and lots of time. Time in front of a computer, outside of regular life. And when your regular life already consists of a full time job and two kids and a husband and a dog, guess when the writing happens? Around the margins. And most of the time, that works. I write at night, or while my oldest is at preschool and the younger one naps. But when a deadline looms, and there are parts of the plot that still need drafting and you hope to go through the whole book and do a revision before your editor sees it...well, the margins don't cut it anymore. So for the past month, I had to ramp it up: on days I wasn't teaching, I'd drop my preschooler off at school (leave the baby home with my husband), and go write. Pick up preschooler, and some days I'd eat lunch and go right back out again. And work at night. On weekends, I'd scoot out for two hours in the morning, before the baby's nap, and/or for a block of time in the afternoon. Husband is a telecommuting freelancer, so fortunately he's been available to pick up the slack--and vacuum and feed the small people who live with us.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah or (less kindly) ego, to create art, I guess. It's a conviction that this story needs to be told, this painting needs to be painted, this sculpture is worth sculpting and poem is worth writing. That in a world with ever-increasing demands on our time and resources, that we're still. Alone. Thoughtful. And "not accomplishing anything." Just writing. "Just writing" doesn't do my laundry or locate the roughly 7,682,000 Squinkies that litter my daughter's bedroom floor, or teach my son how to put the blocks in his shape sorter. It doesn't get rid of the cobwebs that magically appear in the corners or clean the bathroom. Or prep for my classes. Or grocery shop.

It doesn't even answer email or futz around on Facebook.

"Just writing," is me, my iTunes, and a soy chai. It's one eye on the clock and all of my concentration on my characters. It's making notes and figuring out plot points and remembering that I had those characters talk about X early in the book and it better pay off later. It's being able to switch from "mommy mode" to "pro mode" really quickly. And I'm so, so grateful that I get to do this and get paid for it--don't get me wrong!--I just feel BAD sometimes, that I like it so much. And that I not only get to do it--that it's MY JOB to do it. Someone on the other end of the line is waiting for these stories now. And no matter how guilty I feel about taking the hours away from my daytime life to do it, it's important.

I want my children to see their mom doing what she loves, but that doesn't make it easier when I have to tell my daughter that I can't play Secret Agent Princess right now, I have to go write. Or that she can't wear her t-shirt with the dog wearing a top hat on it to school today, because I still haven't done the laundry. Or that we're having Crockpot Chicken Mess for dinner tonight--again. I still feel guilty.

And it's a guilt that all working moms feel. But on the worst days, the days when one of them is recovering from the stomach flu (three times in four weeks!) and my husband hasn't had a chance to shower, and I'm scooting out to sit in a coffee shop and write, I feel a little silly and self-indulgent: Really? Someone's going to read my books? With all the other stuff that's out there? Why bother? Those are the hard days.

And those are the days I'm recovering from now. Book turned in, cobwebs dusted. Still working my way through the laundry (egads). Meatballs are in the crock pot. This morning, I spent some some quality time with my son, the shape sorter, and some Karen Katz lift-the-flap books. At lunch after preschool, Husband and I introduced our daughter to shrimp sashimi and she demolished the innards of our California Roll.

And when the babysitter came, I scooted out to write.