The Hurry Up and Wait
By Sylvia St.Cyr

It’s September and you know what that means. With the kids going back to school also comes the more rigid schedule and flurry of extra curricular activities that the kids are involved in. Whether it’s hockey, volleyball, drums, ballet, art class, etc., it’s the beginning of getting home from work just to grab the kids and drive to another activity.

This busyness can make us as parents believe that there is no extra time to do the things that we love to do, which includes writing.

However, there is this beautiful little thing called the “hurry up and wait”. After we pile the kids in the vehicle and arrive at the destination that we have sped to, we now must wait until our child is done practicing the guitar, or skating laps, or whatever. The hurry up and wait.

In this waiting time, you may be allowed to watch your child during their activity, or perhaps you simply drop off and pick up. If this is the case, why not write while you are waiting? Do you usually watch Netflix or catch up on your social media at that time? Why not put your waiting time to good use and write on your iPad, phone, or even the old fashioned way of putting pen to paper?

This is actually a really good time of focus where you don’t have to answer to anyone else for these allotted minutes, and we have to wait anyway.

My husband is a musician and my son is in football. This means that twice a week, one of us needs to take him to football and wait two hours until he is done. We used to fight over who would take him when, but now we don’t, as my husband uses this two hour window of uninterrupted time to write music in the truck. It works well and he has gotten a lot done.

Perhaps I should fight him to take our son to football so that I have the time to write more. With everything going on in a house hold; homework questions, baths needed to be taken, story time, bed time, dishes and supper; it can be hard to find time to write. But these activities can actually provide some solace and much needed time to create.

About this Contributor:

Sylvia St.Cyr is a Publishing Consultant at Word Alive Press. She was also a journalist and the Arts & Entertainment Coordinator for her local paper, The Citizen. She lives with her husband and two kids just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her first book, Love vs. Fear was just released this fall. For more info, you can find her book here. To read more from Sylvia, check out her blog.