Podcast discusses writing in the midst of Chaos

Wendy H. Jones hosts the podcast known as The Marketing Show, which consists of interviews, hints, tips and news to help people with the business of writing. In this episode, she introduces author Maressa Mortimer, and Maressa shares a little about her background, being from the Netherlands and having 4 adopted children.

Maressa speaks about how her writing began a few years previously, as she created a fake blog with some online friends.

“It’s such a release to make up stories, to write things, to process ideas. Often this is this is great fun. I’m going to do this a bit more. So yeah, but there was a lot of chaos in the day. So you have to work around that.”

Wendy asks about Maressa’s daily routine: “So with four kids and being a homeschooling mom, as I said, in your introduction, what does a typical day look like for you?”

Maressa explains that no day is typical and that most days are chaos, with needing to ‘ferry around’ the children to various things on their different schedules. Many people could relate to most of her daily experiences. However, she notes the end of her day as less typical.

“They are fortunately all in bed by 7.30. More or less at the latest … They have a lot of early years trauma, so they’re exhausted by the time it’s 7.30.”

As the children are in bed, Maressa explains how she is able to take advantage of that for her writing in the evening.

“I really want to sit down, write down the chapter number and then write the story and run out of inspiration by the end of the chapter. And obviously, if I do it in the daytime, it’s harder because you have to fit it around little snippets. So I do that in the evening. And because they’re in bed so early, it works. And I now do a little bit in a day, like little reviews or something. Which helps.”

She goes on to explain making the most of waiting times. For example, with one daughter attending a class called ‘Circus Skills’, Maressa waits for more than an hour in the car. She intentionally brings her laptop and can often use this time for “reading, writing or plotting things“.

Wendy comments on the large number of books that Maressa has produced. Maressa acknowledges that she tries to write a chapter every night and that she often uses the day to think and find inspiration for what she will be writing, so that she has a vague idea of what she will be writing next.

To listen to the full podcast, Click Here.