Writing Wednesday: Frustrated and Stressed from Writer's Block

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Godward

Lately, I have had great difficulty in overcoming time management. It's been challenging because my schedule is so full. I'm a full-time high school teacher with three children (ranging in age from 7-16), a husband and a large extended family. When I get home at 5:00 pm, I am in Mommy-mode up until about 10:00 pm. My youngest is a struggling reader and writer. Reading comprehension, spelling and transferring her thoughts to paper are her greatest weakness. I work intensively with her to overcome this with some teaching strategies I use with my special education students. By the time my children are in bed, I am too exhausted to write.

Additionally, I have both a mom and grandmother who have suffered from strokes and help out taking care of them on the weekends. We are a very tight-knit family. Whenever someone is in trouble, we all pitch in to help one another out. Also, because my family is so large (22 great grandchildren, 20 grandchildren and four generations of Santanas presently alive) there seems to always be a birthday, wedding, poker party and various other engagements to attend.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Renoir

Also, there is my career choice which involves lesson planning, grading (homework, class work, projects, exams), creating individualized education plans and the never-ending staff meetings. I often skip lunch so that the workload I take home isn't so overwhelming. Because I am a coordinator, I manage teacher's assistants and adapt class work to the present levels of performance for a handful of students with disabilities. And although it may sound like I am making excuses, I feel as though these aspects of my life take priority over my writing.

Consequently, being the problem solver that I am, I figured I should look at some websites (listed below). There are several suggestions that are similar in each website. They are:

1. Unplug the internet to lessen distractions.
2. Read blogs and other writing-related materials to get the "juices" flowing.
3. Brainstorm, outline and use graphic organizers to focus your thoughts and your writing.
4. Change the location of your usual writing space.
5. Exercise, go for a walk/run/jog.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

While all of these are really good suggestions, they don't address time management. The Watery Tart has made bath time a priority and succeeds in getting her writing done. The problem with this for me is that my 7-year-old will either stand outside the door and carry on conversations or she'll knock incessantly until she gets a response. I'm often frustrated, confused as to how to manage the writing, and very often upset with myself because I haven't so far. I don't know if the other Burrowers have solved the issue of time management (your suggestions are more than welcome).

Image: Wikimedia Commons

What are some ways that you, as a writer, have overcome the issue of "not enough time in the day?" I would really appreciate any help possible.



Here are the sites I found to be very informative:

http://thefuturebuzz.com/2008/12/03/how-to-overcome-writers-block/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hillary-rettig/how-to-overcome-writers-b_b_739536.html


http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/block.html


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1495637/how_to_overcome_writers_block.html