Pre-Pubbed Tuesday

Each Tuesday, I plan to interview a pre-published homeschool mom. I'll also be lining up some published homeschool moms for Thursday posts. Since I'm pre-pubbed, and most of you don't know me, I'll start with myself.

Tell us a few things about yourself: age, kids, where you live, etc.
I'm a 44-year-old mom of 5. My oldest is my grown foster-son, who is 36. I have four teenagers at home. One is graduated and working on college credits, and I homeschool the other three in grades 7, 9, and 10. My husband and I have been married for 22 years. He's a schoolteacher (as am I, though my class size is much smaller these days!). We're originally from the East Coast (I was born and raised in Brooklyn), but we've lived in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado for 14 years.

What do you write?
Fiction is what I love the most. It's also not easy to make any money at it, so I also do freelance writing. I work for a site called Elance where I freelance and ghostwrite. Even though it's not fiction, any kind of writing is good practice.

How did you get started?
Writing was a huge part of my life in middle and high school. I had some wonderful teachers who encouraged me, along with my parents. However, I had no idea that I could ever actually write a whole book. I thought authors had these complete ideas birthed in their brains, and all the rest of us could hope for was coming up with a few short stories.

Life intervened. I turned 42 and had middle and high schoolers of my own who loved to write. As I researched how to encourage them, I rediscovered how passionate I am about writing stories. An idea came to me (not fully formed), and over time it evolved into a complete idea that I eventually finished at 100,000 words.

When on earth do you find time to write?
I'd rather write than do most anything else. Unfortunately, my family would also like to eat.

Then of course, there's homeschooling.

During the 15 weeks I worked on my first novel, I did little else. The kids, anxious to read the next installment, practically locked me in my room.

"Don't worry, we'll do our assignments. And the dishes. And fix dinner."

Did I tell you I have great kids?

As wonderful as it was to write, mainly uninterrupted, I needed some balance. So now, I try to get up before everyone to edit my novel. Once we've covered the subjects they need me for, I can sit down and do my work for Elance. And sometimes, if my sweetheart is watching a game, I can do some more in the evenings.

If I'm cooking, driving, hanging laundry, or anthing else (relatively mindless), then I'm planning a scene or pondering a new story idea. I carry a notebook in my purse so I don't have to resort to scribbling ideas on toilet paper.

Waking up and falling asleep are my best thinking times. I keep a spiral and pen by my bed, and have become quite adept at writing in the dark (fairly) legibly. One time, however, I wrote an entire page of ideas on a page that had already been written on. Oops.

I don't know if I could have accomplished much writing when my kids were small. We'll soon have some interviews with moms who are doing just that, and hopefully learn their secrets. Hopefully one of these days, that mom will be you!