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How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
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I'm revising this intro after more than 15 years to better reflect my intention When I started this blog in 2004, I was a stay at home mom to two small children, a college graduate with a degree in English and Astrophysics. By 2007, I had four small children, ages newborn, 2, 4, and 6. For several years, Writing.com was how I kept my sanity. This blog began, first as a way of staying connected. Later, when I worked on a novel, I used it to stoke the writing fires as I plotted out short stories and the next step of my novel. Ultimately, I moved my writing preparation to "Invalid Item"  In 2010, I became a single mom who had homeschooled her children for several years. I had a 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old and had never had a "real" full time job, since I was married while in college. Everyone told me that I would have to buckle down and take on a "real" job. Instead, I decided to attempt to live my dream: to make it as a writer. I knew that if I didn't try then, I would never really dive in. I counted my money and set a deadline. If I hadn't began making a decent (defined) amount of money after so many months, I would suck it up and get a J-O-B. After some thought, I decided to play to my strengths. I served an internship at Sky & Telescope magazine while in college and enjoyed writing about space and astronomy. With an astrophysics degree, I thought I would be able to sell myself more easily, and a small niche should be easier to penetrate. It's been about ten years since I was first paid for an article on Space.com. In that time, writing - journalism - has been my primary moneymaker. I've often thought about setting up a blog on my website - www.astrowriter.com - but just haven't gotten around to it. There are a few things I would like to share for those who are interested in scientific journalism in general. Now that I'm back on WDC, there's no reason not to combine the two and use the site blog for that sort of interaction. There are certainly plenty of folks on this site interested in the publication process. So while I'll probably meander around some, that's the intention of of this blog: to share some of my struggles as a published journalist and to help answer oft-asked questions. |
| Today's prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" involves your bedtime routine. What, they ask, do I do to relax and unwind after a long day? My bedtime routine has evolved over the years. I went from a college student to a newlywed and new mom within a little over a month (you're still newlywed if you haven't been married a year, right?) In the next six years, I went from one baby to four, each split by anywhere from 18 months to 2 years. At one point, while pregnant with the last one, I lived in a motorhome. Ideally, the kids and I intended to travel with their dad, who put something like 2,000+ miles on his car each week. That didn't last long, and I wound up in a single campsite either pregnant or with a newborn and three kids 6 and under. Then we bought a house and I continued staying at home and homeschooling my four darlings. Along came divorce and I became a self-employed, work-at-home mom. I also hit 40 and Oreos were taken out of the bedtime routine. I miss them, but then, they never left but settled on my hips and the like. My ideal routine, roughly sketched out, hasn't changed a great deal, cookies notwithstanding. Ideally, I'd walk around the house picking things up and making sure the Roomba had a clear route to work. (We call him Mr. Collins, as in, from Price & Prejudice the Colin Firth movie, and I often cry out, "Mr. Collins, you vex my nerves" in a terrible British accent.) That has mostly been bumped to my kids, now ages 13, 15, 17 and 18-almost-19. They don't always do the greatest job, but it's mostly picked up which is something, right? In truth, I've been slacking at this. I then move to my bath, which is the longest part. Somewhere around the time my second was born, I started taking a nice hot bath. This was usually after the demonspawn had gone to bed, since my darling now-ex husband insisted that his job was his job and he needed time to relax when he got home, while my job was taking care of the kids and I never needed to relax...or something like that. (You can see why he is now-ex lol.) Give me a bath and a book and I am happy. As I have moved to more digital books, with dragging feet, I have occasionally taken my phone into the tub solely to read, but I'm not a fan of that. Phones today are stupid expensive and even if they are water-resistant-not-waterproof, the last thing I need is to drop an expensive electronic device into the tub. Plus the whole screentime keeps you up later thing. Theoretically I read until bedtime, but this is becoming a bit of a challenge. I wind up playing a stupid game or two. With COVID, I've been keeping up with the news even more, and I generally check that at bedtime; I should rework that but I haven't yet. Previously, with four kids and diagnosed depression, I avoided the news because I find it makes the depression worse. I still yell at the newspaper or whatever for incredibly stupid reporting. Good times. I've been trying to lock my phone up in one of those lockboxes with timers that won't open unless you break it until a preset time. That has helped somewhat, but if I'm reading on my phone it becomes harder. The low charge doesn't make a huge difference because I'm at home during the workday, but I still don't like waking up and my phone is at 35%. I also refill the gas on my car at a quarter tank..... Moving on to some blogging material, I've been chewing over an idea for a story based on a 'acquaintances' response to my facebook post, in which they called me racist, because I was calling out racism. I did ask, well why are we fb friends then? I'm waiting to delete him as a friend so he can at least read it lol. But it's making me chew on the edge of a story from the outside in. Too much Joyce Carol Oates, I think. Last night, I got up from bed to type it up in my storywriting blog, a book I have yet to figure out how to offload. One of these days. |
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