Writing in the dark

The biggest challenge to writing while being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) is finding the time.  But I have developed a two part strategy!

Now there is rarely a time when I have more than 30 consecutive seconds of free time.  In fact, in writing the last three sentences, I've gotten up twice.  Once to get apple juice and once to tell Jack to stop throwing the blanket over the kitty.  So, part one of my strategy is idea retention.  This is simply being able to remember what I was doing when I got interrupted.  Perhaps you think this is no big deal?  Then you must not be a mother.  A mother's brain is a whirlwind of information that can not always be counted on to produce the right bit of information on demand.  So, I have become queen of the one-word memory trigger.  Let's say I'm working on a story and just had a fabulous idea and then I get hollered at to find a piece of a toy that no one has seen in four months.  Before I leap up from my chair, I jot one or two words quickly in the margin.  I can  come back from my victorious toy hunt and can pick right back up where I left off.  The only time this does not necessarily work is when the fabulous idea I had was so off in left field that the reminder word makes no sense (what did I mean with 'shoelace parachute'?).

My second way of tackling this problem is writing everywhere and whenever I can.  Two minutes waiting in the parking lot for school to end?  Write in the notebook I carry in my purse.  45 seconds before the soccer game starts?  Jot a note in the memo section on my phone.  10 minutes sitting upstairs in the boy's bedroom waiting for one of them to fall asleep?  Write in the pitch black on a scrap piece of paper I found on the floor.  When I look at it in the light, it may look like it was written by a drunk serial killer, but my ideas are there!