Laura
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Somewhere I remember reading that you started your writing career when your children were young and at home with you. What was that like and do you have any advice to parents trying to both write and care for kids? I also want to join the chorus of your fans by saying "Thank you!" This new Q&A feature is a great supplement to your goodreads blog posts.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, I'm not sure there is a short answer aside from I Was A Lot Younger. I'm not going to write my autobiography here in this little box, but some of that period is touched on in my forwards and afterwords to my Baen omnibus editions, which are now all collected in Sidelines: Talks and Essays.
I'm not sure my guilt and time problems were any different from those of any other working mother, but the open and self-directed structure of writing makes it a lot harder and more confusing for a family to recognize as work -- even after one starts selling -- compared to a parent who goes out the door at 8 and doesn't show up again till 5. On the other hand, it was way more flexible -- I never had to beg a boss for time off to deal with family emergencies or illness, I didn't have to waste time on a commute, and the actual core hours involved were usually fewer than 40 (or 50, or 60) hours a week. On the downside, getting paid was a rare and random event. "I must go to work this week or I will be fired" is a lot more immediate an argument than "I must go to work or I might not get paid next year, maybe. Or perhaps the year after..." Especially when one is mining the couch cushions for milk money.
I actually developed my writing process in that environment, by collecting extensive notes in little bites over a period of days and then, when they reached critical mass, hiring a babysitter or using time my spouse was home to take my notebook (3-ring binder, not laptop -- they weren't invented yet, and I couldn't have afforded one even if they had been) to the public library and do the core first drafting in short bursts. Not for me a process where one sits in front of the computer for hours wrestling for inspiration. Once I had the first draft nailed to the page, I could bring it back and transcribe and edit in the more chaotic home environment, ditto any and all para-writing tasks. Once both kids were in grade school, this whole struggle went away -- school time was writing time. I only sent a sick kid to school a couple of times... :-( Summers, I went back to the old system, but since the kids were indeed older it was all less fraught.
Note that this all got started because, in a rust-belt town in the middle of a recession, I couldn't get a day job. (If I had, I might not be here today, so, whew for that.) How someone is to juggle a day job, a family, and writing, I cannot advise -- that's one more cat/chainsaw/burning torch than I ever tried to keep in the air at once.
Ta, L.
Well, I'm not sure there is a short answer aside from I Was A Lot Younger. I'm not going to write my autobiography here in this little box, but some of that period is touched on in my forwards and afterwords to my Baen omnibus editions, which are now all collected in Sidelines: Talks and Essays.
I'm not sure my guilt and time problems were any different from those of any other working mother, but the open and self-directed structure of writing makes it a lot harder and more confusing for a family to recognize as work -- even after one starts selling -- compared to a parent who goes out the door at 8 and doesn't show up again till 5. On the other hand, it was way more flexible -- I never had to beg a boss for time off to deal with family emergencies or illness, I didn't have to waste time on a commute, and the actual core hours involved were usually fewer than 40 (or 50, or 60) hours a week. On the downside, getting paid was a rare and random event. "I must go to work this week or I will be fired" is a lot more immediate an argument than "I must go to work or I might not get paid next year, maybe. Or perhaps the year after..." Especially when one is mining the couch cushions for milk money.
I actually developed my writing process in that environment, by collecting extensive notes in little bites over a period of days and then, when they reached critical mass, hiring a babysitter or using time my spouse was home to take my notebook (3-ring binder, not laptop -- they weren't invented yet, and I couldn't have afforded one even if they had been) to the public library and do the core first drafting in short bursts. Not for me a process where one sits in front of the computer for hours wrestling for inspiration. Once I had the first draft nailed to the page, I could bring it back and transcribe and edit in the more chaotic home environment, ditto any and all para-writing tasks. Once both kids were in grade school, this whole struggle went away -- school time was writing time. I only sent a sick kid to school a couple of times... :-( Summers, I went back to the old system, but since the kids were indeed older it was all less fraught.
Note that this all got started because, in a rust-belt town in the middle of a recession, I couldn't get a day job. (If I had, I might not be here today, so, whew for that.) How someone is to juggle a day job, a family, and writing, I cannot advise -- that's one more cat/chainsaw/burning torch than I ever tried to keep in the air at once.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Evan Peterson
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
My apologies if this is too personal a question.. I have read a majority of your books and just finished reading Penric's hardcover editions and re-reading the rest of the World of Five Gods series...and I notice a recurring theme of older/younger romances. Betriz/Cazaril Fawn/Dag even Penric and Desdemona. Drawing from personal experience or drawn to that dymamic for purely the tension it adds?
Will Bodine
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Dear Lois McMaster Bujold, First of all, in my household, my father regarded you as the best that SciFi had to offer and it was stories of Miles retold to me as an asthmatic child in the ER, for the umpteenth time impatiently breathing away through a nebuliser cursing myself and my asthma for millionth time, that place you upon so high a pedestal. Was Dubauer based upon a real life person?
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