It's A Juggling Act

I don't see how some people do it--write while holding down a full-time job (and I include being a wife and mother in that category). I'm retired, don't have to punch a time-clock or adhere to a work schedule, but I still find it almost impossible to get the time to write. It seems that, just as the creative juices are flowing, some family need or other obligation crops up. That's what's happened to me over the past week. But that's okay. God didn't make me a one-dimensional person, nor do I think He intended those of us who feel called to write to engage in the practice 24/7. We're to be well-rounded humans, sensitive to the needs around us. At least, that's my feeling.

In this short post, let me simply make an observation and let you chew on it a while. I'm currently re-reading a novel by one of my favorite authors, the late Ross Thomas. This one is Briarpatch. It won the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America, an honor that I think was richly deserved. I just read the introduction to a chapter in which Thomas uses omniscient voice to give a page and a half of explanation--the history of the city to which his protagonist is summoned when his sister is blown up by a car bomb. Then Thomas picks up in third person and moves on. He does it smoothly. He held my attention with all the "telling." In other words, he broke a couple of rules and did it with such good writing that the story proceeded smoothly. I don't plan to set out to deliberately break "rules," but if I could write as well as Ross Thomas, I'll bet I could get away with it.

Okay, back to work--and maybe a little writing later today.