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Developing a writing habit is difficult, especially when your world is full of distractions. Of all the distractions writers face, there is one to rule them all: children. 

If you’re a parent, you may wonder if it’s possible to be a writer and a parent simultaneously. You may struggle to balance your writing and your God-given responsibility to raise your beautiful children. You might even see other moms with successful writing careers while homeschooling 17 children and wonder, How do they do it? 

How do busy moms find time to write and be a mom at the same time?  

I interviewed Asheritah Ciuciu to find out. She is a bestselling author; national speaker; host of the international Prayers of REST; and the mother of three spunky kids, ages eight, five-and-a-half, and three.

When did you start writing?

Thomas Umstattd Jr.: Where did you get your drive to write? Which came first, the children or the writing?

Asheritah Ciuciu: I always wanted to be a writer. My parents have an incredible story. When I was growing up, people would say that someone should write their story. People assumed I would grow up and write their story. It’s always been my dream, but I have not yet written that story. It is on my long list of projects.

From a young age, I wanted to be a writer. I thought I would write fiction, but that’s not where I started.

My family endured a difficult season right after I was out of college, so I set aside those dreams. I got a job in telemarketing and focused on healing, growing, and doing the next right thing.

Then in 2012, multiple people told me the same thing; and it felt like maybe God was telling me that he had given me a gift and I had buried it. It was time to unbury that talent and put it into his service. It was as if he said, “It’s time for you to start writing.”

I’m a researcher at heart and love learning how to do things. For a few months, I researched how to become a writer and how to get published. I learned that blogging was the way to start because I needed to build an audience.

I made my master plan for building an audience, and it just so happened that I got pregnant at the same. When I realized that pregnancy comes with maternity leave, I thought, “Wow! What a perfect time for me to start my blog because I’ll be home with nothing to do!”

Thomas: Ah, the optimism of being a first-time mother. How hard could a newborn be?

Asheritah: I was naïve. I had my firstborn, Carissa, in September; and on October 1, I started my blog, OneThingAlone.com.

It was hard. Looking back, I can see God’s grace and strength carrying me through those first few months of brain fog while I showed up to write consistently. I wanted to encourage moms to make time for Jesus and make him our “one thing alone,” even during busy seasons.

Thomas: In the business world, companies that perform best are often the ones that start during a recession because if you can make your company work during bad economic times, the good times just make it better.

Whereas if you start your company in good economic times, the first recession you face is a challenge because you don’t know what it’s like to operate a business when it’s not easy.

It’s the same thing with writing. If you can develop the discipline of writing with a newborn, you’ll know you can write under difficult circumstances. If life gets easier, the writing may be easier as well.

Asheritah: I have pictures of myself with each of my children as newborns, resting on my chest while I’m at my computer writing.

Thomas: Sometimes babies just want to be held. They don’t need you to be mentally present. They just need you to be there physically. You only get a limited amount of time to hold a newborn.

Before this interview, my children begged me to read books to them. One book turned into two books, and two turned into three; but I finally came to my office for this interview.

As kids age, they need you to be physically and mentally present.

How do you navigate the mental shift from writing to caring for your kids?

Thomas: How do you navigate the transition from working on a blog post to being there mentally with your kids?

Asheritah: I struggled with that for a long time. No matter what I did, I felt guilty for not doing the other thing.

If I was writing, I felt guilty that I wasn’t spending time with my children. If I was with my children, reading books or maybe, making three meals a day for them, I felt guilty that I wasn’t working on my writing.

It felt like a lose-lose proposition.

I’m a huge believer in the importance of community and having people who can speak truth into your life. I reached out to a mentor mom from my local church and asked her, “What am I doing wrong here? How do I make this work? If God is calling me to put down my writing for a season, I will do it in a heartbeat.”

I was more than willing to set it aside for a season because I didn’t want to sacrifice my family on the altar of ministry. I have seen that happen in my own family, and it caused deep wounds in my life.

I didn’t want to hurt my children by ignoring them. This older mom friend looked at me and said, “If God is calling you to lay it down, he will make that clear to you. But if he is calling you to both, then wherever you are, be all there. If you are with your children, be present with them. Focus on them. Soak in the glory and beauty of being a mom and having children. When you sit down to write, ignore the guilt and be all there at your computer. Be faithful to the work that God has called you to do. When you step away from the computer, leave your work behind. Be present where your feet are.”

I haven’t implemented her advice perfectly, but it has helped.

Be present where your feet are.

Thomas: Be present where your feet are. I love that. You can’t do a good job writing if you feel guilty. Your conscience will sabotage your work.

How did you overcome the guilty feelings surrounding writing?

Thomas: How were you able to sit at your computer without your children and not feel guilty working on your writing?

Asheritah: I’ve tried to hold loosely to my calling of being a writer. I surrender it to God and trust that he will tell me if or when his calling on my life changes.

My husband and I have also viewed writing as my job. It’s not just a hobby for me. Even when I worked only a few hours each week, I still treated it as my job.

We told our kids, “Just like daddy has to go to work, mommy’s going to work right now. When mommy’s done, she’ll come back.”

My husband’s support was huge; but the other part was trusting that if God wanted me to do something differently, he would make that abundantly clear.

My husband and I have the conversation at the beginning of each year. We sit down to prayerfully plan the year and answer the questions:

• What will we say yes to this year?
• How many hours am I committing to work this year?

It’s been different in different seasons. When I was writing, publishing, and launching books one on top of another, I sometimes worked 30 hours per week.

But I’ve also had slow times when I’ve worked only five or ten hours per week. It’s helped to know there will be seasons where I will work less and have more fun with my family. There will also be seasons where I anticipate that writing and publishing will demand more of me.

As a family unit, we can anticipate the ebb and flow of publishing.

Thomas: That work rhythm is natural and ancient. Most of us descended from agrarian cultures. Farmers don’t work for eight hours and then clock out as a factory worker would. At harvest time, a farmer might work 14 hours per day. If there’s a harvest moon, you might work longer than that.

When the ground is frozen in the winter, a farmer could sleep all day if he wanted. That was a normal rhythm.

But Americans grew up with a mindset that you get eight hours to work for Mr. Ford in the factory, eight hours to yourself, and eight hours to sleep. But that’s not a seasonal rhythm.

We need to give ourselves permission to have seasons of rest and seasons of working.  

How do you incorporate rest into your work?

Asheritah: We’re living in a twenty-four-seven hustle culture. Because of social media, people expect you to be engaged online, creating stories of your life on Instagram. Everything is up for public consumption.

I fell into that, and it’s something I still guard against. It’s tempting to try