Wishes

I struggle with my blog/life balance. 

Time perks up when I switch on my laptop. It grins evilly and lulls me into a false sense of security, fooling me into thinking it’s running at it’s usual speed, but then just when I’m not looking it enters hyperspeed and I’m out of time almost before I’ve begun. If real life didn’t tug at my sleeve I’d probably become one with my chair, tip-tapping away until dusk.

Hello, I’m Bod for tea, and I’m a blogoaholic.

Am I a geek? I don’t think so. I love creating things and the connections I make online. Put the two together and I’d happily live on my laptop for hours. (Until my back gives out and I realise I’ve gotta move more of this stiff ol’ body than my fingers.)

Is it the scarcity of my online life that makes it so appealing? When OH is working away from home I rub my hands with glee at the prospect of a good few hours guilt-free laptopping, but by the second evening the gloss has usually faded and I’m craving a good book and an early night (not to mention a cuddle).

Is it, in fact, just the act of writing itself? I love it. I crave it. I need it. But it can take me a while to get into full flow sometimes (all the time) so when I finally get my writing mojo down and my juices flowing it can be a tad…errr… frustrating when, as much as I love it, I’m dragged back to the reality of nappy changes and Duplo shopping for plastic bananas for the twelfth time.

So is it a writing/life balance problem rather than a blog/life balance problem I wonder? I wish. If I’m brutally honest I probably spend more time reading other people’s blogs and hanging out on Twitter, Facebook and the like than I do actually showing up at the page and emptying my soul onto paper, so I can’t claim that badge of honour.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, it’s a sort of addiction. Fuelled by my long-held desire to write and stimulated by the lovely bloggers I’ve met on this journey. Add some time limitations to fan the flames of desire and you have yourself a fully-fledged craving.

But life’s gotta be lived people and so it should be. 

And so I tackle this imbalance by making time bend for me, by getting up at stupid o’clock to get my fix before DD yawns into her day and by respecting an 8 o’clock curfew for my online life, after which all laptops and smartphones have to be switched off so that OH and I can live our real lives.

Because that is what life is really about, after all. Living. In the real world. (With the smartphone on silent, you know just in case…).

How do you manage your blog/life balance? 


Read about how other bloggers do it at the lovely Notes from Home’s

This post is also part of the fantabulous Josie’s The Writing Workshop ‘Wishes’ over at Sleep is for the Week.

Image credit: stevenroddy.com