Dear Carolyn,

Do you think it's possible to have a successful writing career without devoting eery single minute of every single day to it?

I was blog hopping yesterday and read a few different blogs that seemed to share the opinion that if you aren't spending hours a day writing and promoting and being a writer, you won't be successful. And when I say hours a day I mean 18 out of 24 hours and hope your kid can open the Spaghetti-O's can and use the microwave cause Mama is busy.

I can't be that person. (What a joke: trying to keep me out of the kitchen would be equivalent to a criminal act!) And I love hanging out with the kid in the living room and watching some TV with her and being present in her life.

I'm finding that the older I get the less it's about doing things as others tell me to and a lot more about figuring out ways that let me love my life and feel fulfilled.

Yesterday I hit my word count after about an hour and a half of writing. The problem was I felt really burned out after that. (Yesterday I also mopped the floor, vacuumed and killed the fish. It was a very strange day for me, a very bad one for the fish.)

It's only 5:30 in the morning right now and I have a pot of coffee and I'm going to see if I can hit the word count for the day right now. But then I also need to get the kid to school, bake an apple pie, clean the bathrooms and update my Facebook page.

I don't think I can sit in front of the computer for hours and hours without wanting to hurt myself. Can you?

Well, I might never be a million dollar success but I will have the life I want. One that has lots of homemade cookies, a happy kid and some books I wrote. I think that will probably be good enough for me.