Many of us try to balance our home lives with our freelance writing careers and most of the time we succeed. We manage to get breakfast for children and get them off to school, talk to clients, meet deadlines, collect children, supervise homework and tuck them up in bed. All without breaking a sweat (most of the time, anyway). Then there are the other times.

Those are the times where nothing goes according to plan. All of a sudden you are racing against the clock, trying to cram in all those essential tasks you thought you had left enough time for. As I’ve discovered, it doesn’t take much to derail the working day. An unexpected phone call can lose you half an hour or more. A public holiday in the middle of the week can wreak havoc on your schedule. And if someone drops by for coffee, you have to tear your mind away from the mound of work that you know will still be waiting for you at midnight.

So how do you find balance? I’ve written about this before because I face the same challenges. I have a five year old daughter who’s in school but with whom I want to spend time when she’s not. Time with friends and family is equally important. Sometimes you just have to look at the big picture, which is what I did after a frantic year where I was glued to the computer from morning till night.

I decided that I had to control the work rather than letting it control me. I decided that there had to be some sacred family time with my daughter, husband or mother (or all three at the same time.) I decided that there had to be time for exercise to look after my long term health. And I decided that there had to be time for friends, because the deal is that you support each other.

So how has that affected my freelancing career? The truth is that after the madness of my first year of freelancing (during which I also completed an international move), the succeeding years have been much saner. There are still times when I turn down social gatherings because of work pressure, but there are also times when I reschedule jobs to allow me to meet commitments to the people who are important to me.

I’m pleased to welcome Lori Chance to the blog today. She’s a writing life coach and has recently published a book aimed a stressed out, overworked moms. It’s called Who Am I?

Hi Lori. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Well, I’m a mom, an entrepreneur, a writing coach and a professional networker. In everything I do, I love to support people in reaching their most meaningful goals. In my ‘spare’ time, I enjoy reading all kinds of books, hiking and I try to crochet from time to time.

Your title is intriguing. How did you come up with it?

Knowing who we are – not just what we do each day, but the part of us that always was and always will be no matter what activities life has us handling – defines the choices we make. And it’s the choices we make that determine how satisfied with our lives we are.

I’ll use myself as an example. I spent 10 years working in an industry I hated thinking I was doing the right thing. In fact, I was doing what my parents had told me I needed to do – get a job that paid the bills and plan to wait until I retire to do anything I might enjoy. I chose the job I took. And I chose to stay in it for 10 years. When I finally began to really look at myself – what made me happy, what I really wanted to do with my life, who I really was inside – my choices began to change. One of the choices I changed was the job I held. I decided to pursue something I loved. If you can answer that one single question for yourself, Who Am I?, you’ll naturally start living a life that’s meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling.

What was your inspiration for writing this book?

When my 2nd child was only 12 days old, my then 49-year-old mother had a brain aneurysm rupture. It was a surprise. She was seemingly healthy one day, and fighting for her life the next. I remember looking in the mirror and realizing that anything could happen at any time and it made me wonder, “Would I be proud of my life if something were to happen to me today?” I was stunned when the only answer I could think of was, “No.” It was that day that I decided to really take a look at myself and my life. Although it was quite a process to get through, the one question that guided every step was my constantly wondering, “Who am I? If I could get past all the familial ‘shoulds’ I’d been handed down, if I could get past all the cultural ‘boxes’ I’d grown up in, if I could get beyond all the limitations I’d created for myself, Who am I at that level?”

As I learned about myself, I began to realize I wasn’t the only one asking these types of questions or longing for something ‘more’ from life. It was such a challenging journey for me that I wanted to find a way to create something that would help others make it through that chaotic, confusing maze a little easier. I also wanted to make such a resource as accessible as possible – not everyone can afford to pay for counselling, coaching or seminars, but they still have the same questions to answer. This book was the result of both my journey, and my desire to help others.

What’s the main message of Who Am I?

You can. You should. You deserve to be happy too.

I believe everyone has the ability to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, and deserves to live that life – whatever it might look like for them.

I know you work as a life coach for writers. How has that contributed to the approach you take in Who Am I?

Actually, my clients taught me a lot about how to write the book. I’ll be boldly honest and admit that the form in which it’s being published now, isn’t the way it was originally written. When I wrote it the first time, I made ALL the rookie mistakes! I wrote it for me and forgot about what my reader might need. Needless to say, it bombed! I knew the journey, the coaching and the writing pieces, but I still had some learning to do about publishing. In working with my clients, and connecting with the writing and publishing world in general, I was able to rewrite the book so that my message can still get out, but it will also sell. What good is a message that no one receives? It’s not. I had to learn to balance the selling with my message. Now, that’s one of the first lessons I teach clients who’ve never published before so that they can avoid making the same mistakes.

Do you plan a follow up?

I’m a writer at heart so of course, there will be something. I’ll share a little secret with you that I haven’t had the guts to share with too many people yet: I’m writing a memoir about that journey I mentioned earlier. It’s in the very beginning stages, but I’m in the process of arranging my schedule for 2008 so that I can focus on it and see what happens. It’s exciting, and a little scary, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

What is your writing process and what inspires you to write?

My process is a lot like making a home-made stew. I get an idea and let it ‘simmer’ in the back of my mind. If after a while it hasn’t gone away and I’m still interested in pursuing it, I’ll get out paper and a pen. I keep a lot of spiral notebooks around in which I scratch ideas out. This scratching process is like tasting the stew as it’s simmering – I’m finding out what else I need to add, what might work, what won’t and whether or not I want to continue with it. This can go one for 5 minutes, or it can go on for years, it depends on the size of the project I have in mind. At some point though I just know it’s time to really start writing it. To me, this is like finally getting to take the stew off the stove and savouring every bite. I’ll share drafts with a couple of close friends I trust, but I’ll keep trying and re-trying the recipe for a while until I “get it.”. When I’ve changed the same comma 5 times and the only other editing I’m doing is replacing the same word with synonyms over and over again, I know I’m done and it’s time to let it go out into the world.

As for what inspires me? Life itself. I have one main motivation and it’s in the form of a question I ask myself constantly: How can I make the biggest, most positive impact on the most number of people in a way that is equally supportive to me? I want to fulfil who I am by helping others fulfil who they are. As I focus on that question, ideas come.

What’s the best advice you have received about writing or publishing?

You can’t be successful in a vacuum. You’ve got to find a supportive community in which you can learn, grow, and share the process. And my personal recommendation: try to find a community in which everyone else knows more than you do – you’ll learn even faster (and hopefully avoid more mistakes)!

Tell us one thing about yourself that you haven’t
yet revealed in an interview.

I love my kids’ perspective on things. So far, there’s only one question they’ve asked me that I haven’t been able to find an answer for: “Mama, why are houses outside?” Of course, my kids are 4 and 7, so I’m sure they’ll be coming up with more tough questions soon, but that’s my favourite so far!

Visit the Who Am I? website to find out more about the book.

Technorati Tags: writing,coaching,empowerment,wahm

Sometimes you just have to know when it’s time to take a day off. This is an issue that most work at home moms face, especially during the summer holidays. Most days, I try to work from just after breakfast till just after nap time, leaving several hours in the afternoon for me to play with and hang out with my daughter.

Today was different. We had to visit a family member, which ended up taking twice as long as I had thought. By the time I had run some errands, the day was pretty much shot for work. Instead of stressing about how little I had accomplished, I decided to revel in some family time, so we played in the pool then went out for dinner. It has been a day of much needed relaxation.

Don’t get me wrong. As a freelance writer, I firmly believe in having a writing schedule and sticking to it. That means that I always meet my deadlines and that all my clients are happy. However, as a mother, it’s important to spend time with my family. Since my daughter’s back at school next week, I will enjoy this last week of her company, and I’ll work evenings this week to make sure I complete all my work on time. How do you handle this balance during the school holidays?

I’ve just realised something. Nearly every writer I know at the moment is a mom. Some have new babies, some have older children, some even have grandchildren. There are lots of us juggling writing careers and motherhood. Some of us are freelancing full time, while others are combining writing with full time jobs outside the homes. I figure we deserve at least one day. So this post is for all of you (all of us): Happy Mother’s Day.