You Have to Want It As a full-time mom and part-time romance novelist, the struggles I face in finishing a project are hardly unique.  Most beginning authors don’t have the luxury of quitting their day job to follow their dream and neither do I. I started writing when my first daughter was 15 months old.  Although she needed a lot of attention, she was an easy baby, rarely sick or ill-tempered, and I found plenty of time to write.  Because this post is about overcoming obstacles, I’ll tell you about the very different experience I had with my second child. I had no illusions that writing a book with two small children underfoot would be a piece of cake.  I worried that I would never be able to start another project, much less finish one, actually.  The first few months passed in a zombie-like state all new mothers are familiar with, a haze of sleepless nights and endless days.  I often had a book in one hand and a baby in the other, but I didn’t even try to write.  I continued to think about writing, however, and soon I was jotting down ideas and stealing a few precious moments at the computer every chance I got. I’m not going to say it was smooth sailing, because it wasn’t.  This was the most difficult year of my life.  Daughter #2 wasn’t the docile lamb daughter #1 had been at that age.  She preferred short naps during the day and woke frequently at night.  When she was awake she demanded to be rocked, carried or strolled.  She also caught every cold that went around and suffered from recurring ear infections. Sometimes I wondered if trying to write in the midst of all this chaos was keeping me sane or making me crazier.  Even so, I’m not sure I could have done it any differently.  You have to want it, and boy, did I want it.   And yes, I finished my sixth novel a few weeks before the baby’s first birthday.  How did I do it? I didn’t watch TV (much) I didn’t sleep (much) I didn’t read (at all) I got help (a lot) To clarify, I’m not a masochist.  I slept when I could and I would recommend that you do the same.  But I did stay up an extra hour or two to write on many nights.  I also think that reading is the best thing a writer can do to improve his or her own work.  But I had to make a choice between finishing my book and picking up someone else’s. Most importantly, I had help.  Did my husband appreciate the fact that I handed him the baby every time he walked through the door?  Probably not.  But since I was the one getting up to feed her several times a night, I couldn’t drum up any sympathy for him. The bottom line is that I made writing a top priority.  My husband understood how much my work meant to me because I told him, repeatedly, how I felt.  I showed him how committed I was by working in the evenings and on weekends.  I shared my disappointments with him and we celebrated my triumphs. So make writing a top priority and finish that project!  If you don’t give your work the respect it deserves, no one else will.Jill Sorenson is a resident of San Diego and a member of RWA-San Diego. Read more about her at www.jillsorenson.com.