(Or How to Grow As A 10 Minute Novelist)

Back in 2006, I did a pretty small thing: I decided to take my writing career seriously. Now the problem I had, besides a lack of confidence, was that I didn’t have any time to do this. My time was consistently taken up by the other small things in my life: my five children, who were, at the time between the ages of six months and eight years old.

I decided that whatever effort I could put toward my dreams of writing would be worth it, even the smallest. So I set my timer and did my best to write ten minutes a day. If I was lucky, I could get several ten minute increments of writing in between laundry, meals, homeschooling and other domestic duties. Because I am a mother, I understood then and I understand now that true growth doesn’t come in leaps and bounds. Growth comes in the tiniest of disciplines. My children grow because I feed them daily. They learn how to read, how to be a decent human being, and how to become who they were destined to be by slow, steady growth.