Friday mornings should be easy. No homework is due tomorrow. There are no practices, no looming deadlines. 

Instead, Friday arrives carrying everything I postponed while working and playing mom-ager all week. Wrapping up work tasks? Not with five piles of laundry to sort and fold, floors desperate for cleaning, an empty fridge, and doctor’s offices to call. 

And hovering over all of it is the same question:

Do I tackle the list, or do I write?

Writing or not, the list exists. It is as ever-present as death and taxes. Choosing to write doesn’t make it disappear, but adds to it. Creation costs time, and time creates consequences.

That’s the problem of modern living. It demands constant attention in hundreds of small ways. The kids need new shoes. The car keyfob battery is low. The shower faucet is slowly dripping.

I fantasize of living like the great writing giants. I heard that J.R.R. Tolkien took his leisurely morning walks to ruminate over his ideas before putting pen to paper. In Key West, Ernest Hemingway fished the azure waters before isolating in his separate den. Or to be like Isabel Allende, heading to her office, kicking after another year of writing with days of her retreat to dream, ponder, and edit. 

The reality looks much different. I write at the kitchen table while pounding leftover soup for breakfast, still in sweaty workout clothes from earlier. The words come between sips. Maybe I’ll get a shower around lunch. Maybe I won’t till the end of the day. 

Even when I steal those precious moments to write, half the time they’re interrupted. In the evenings, by the kid sneaking out of bed or yelling, “Mom!” down the hallway. It’s a spouse asking what I’m doing or if we need to add onions to the grocery list. During the day, it’s school phone calls or package drop alerts. 

I don’t have a quiet writing retreat with hours of long, quiet hours at hand. 

Distraction is part of our modern, layered lifestyles. But it’s these daily fragments that inspire. An idea for a plot twist struck me while driving from the UPS store. A rough day on the water training inspired a blog. Life interrupts, but it also colors. 

Stories reflect our lived experiences. We layer texture into our writing. What we need to do is to learn rhythm and intentional returns. To focus on that which matters the absolute most and let everything else go. To decide, again and again, what matters most—and to come back to it, even when the world keeps pulling us away.