I'm a mere mortal, however every morning my husband and I rise at 6:30 a.m., get the kids up for school, sink back to the mattress for a few seconds of rest, toss on our clothes and drop the kids at school. After dropping them off, we get to work, put in a full day of either painting, pulling weeds, cutting grass, or whatever the fancy of our client happens to be. We then return home, sweaty, beat, and tired; I cook dinner, we barter to see who'll help with homework, listen to the gab of the day attentively with comments in their appropriate spots.

Finally toward the end of each full day, I toss a load or two of laundry in, take a shower, contemplate washing my hair and negate that idea, deciding that all gardens grow with good fertilized soil so hair should be no different, right?

Around 10:43 p.m. I breathe… slightly. I haven't made any submissions for the month and it's already the fourteenth. Disappointed in myself, I realize that all of my goals have flown out of the window. I get down on myself about not making the most of every miniscule portion of time God allots me in a day and then I realize that each day is formulated differently. In the beginning of this writing journey I had a set monthly schedule of what magazines were going to get submitted to, I had my files together, my submissions going out and at the end of the month I still hadn't met my goals. The next few months I changed my goals to weekly goals and still didn't meet those all the time. In addition, I seemed to get more rejections than submissions were going out. Now I have changed the whole system around. I have a list of magazines and publishers I desire to send to and as I submit to them, I mark them off. They aren't designated for any specific month but they are designated. I get excited if I submit more than ten in a week and I also rejoice if I submit at all because so much is going on in our lives. Right now we can't afford for me to write full time so I must be grateful for the small amounts of time that I get. I've published a few things but definitely not enough to move the family to Beverly Hills.

My family keeps me from giving up by inspiring me to be creative. From my young children to my husband, they all encourage and reinforce what a great writer they believe I am. They give me that extra oompf to continue submitting when I'm tired and all submissions return as "no." 

As a general consensus, most days we live in complete chaos and those are the days I submit the most. Some days we live in partial chaos and those days my papers are out, I should be writing but just can't. I used to try to make weekly menus and stick to those but that didn't work, I'd try to do all laundry on particular days and have it folded by the children and put away, I've even tried to schedule time for the children to talk to me but it doesn't work. I have never been able to schedule for spontaneity. I used to capitalize on the fact that I'm a neat freak. I love a clean house, it makes me happy, but when I buckle down to cook, take care of the kids and the husband, work, write, and submit, I find the only peace I have is if I take it one day at a time.

R. Ginger Robinson is a freelance writer out of Pass Christian, Mississippi.  She is married with three children and two dogs.  She is presently endeavoring to secure publishers for her two inspirational novels.

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