People look at me in disbelief when I tell them that I'm the mother of five young children and a freelance writer. “No way,” they say. “You can't possibly write for publication. How do you ever have a complete a thought much less get it down on paper?”

This is a fair question, I suppose, if you've never been a writing mother of five. To be honest, sometimes I have to remind myself of how exactly I get any writing done while raising my five rambunctious but generally delightful kids.

First, I'm a writing parent because I want to write more than I want to do almost anything else alongside raising my children. For me, writing is a passionate desire and not some vague longing. As the parent of a four-month-old, a three-year-old, a seven-year-old, an eight-year-old and a twelve-year-old, I don't have time to fulfill vague longings. I write because I want desperately to write ? much more than I want to keep an immaculate house or take a hot soak in the tub after a long day with the kids.

However passionate my desire to write, desire alone isn't enough to make me a writing parent. As much as I want to pen essays or craft Op-Ed pieces, I sometimes procrastinate writing projects — putting them off with plans to write sometime soon. Maybe I'll write tomorrow when I'm not so tired, maybe Saturday morning while the kids watch cartoons, maybe next week after I'm caught up on the housework (let's be honest—does this ever happen while raising kids?). I will find the time and energy to write sometime soon. I'm sure I will, won't I?

In my experience, the writing-time-is-just-around-the-corner approach translates to little, if any, writing ? ever. It's far too focused on the someday, and the someday is always out there just ahead of us ? teasing us, continually leading us to believe that writing can be done sometime in the near future. The truth is, the only writing we ever accomplish happens right now, in the present — not sometime soon, which may, in reality, never actually arrive.

When I get stuck in the putting-my-writing-off-until-just-a-little-later mode, I ask myself, “Do you really want to write or do you just like the idea of writing and thinking of yourself as a writer?” “Yes,” I answer myself, “I really want to write.” So, while recognizing that my hands are full with parenting responsibilities, I can't help but ask myself another question: “What if you knew you could write today or never. Would you make the time to write today?” Yes, even as a mother of five, I would make the time.

Making Today a Celebration

To make the time and to take it consistently, I've looked to other writing mothers to see that it's possible. The writing mother who inspired me first was the interior designer and philosopher of contemporary living, Alexandra Stoddard. In her insightful and luminous book, Living a Beautiful Life , she shares her conviction that every day can be a celebration and gives specific suggestions for making them so.

The book itself is amazing, but what's truly incredible is that she wrote this book and others while working full-time as an interior designer and raising her two young daughters as a single mother.

How did she accomplish this without running away to a writers' colony or spending evenings writing while her daughters were glued to the television? Her plan was simple but required some self-discipline: She woke each morning at 5 a.m. and wrote until seven. Morning after morning she did this and over the years, she wrote book after book. To date, she has authored 22 books and shows no signs of slowing down.

I wonder if she would be a writer now, with even one book published, if she had continually put off her desire to write while raising her kids, thinking she would have the time to write sometime in the near future ? sometime just around the corner.

No More Excuses

After reading Mary Higgins Clark's memoir, Kitchen Privileges, I stopped making excuses for not writing while raising children. When Higgins Clark's husband died, she was left to raise their five children (ages 5 to 13) alone. With little savings in the bank, she wasted no time feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she supported her family by writing radio spots.

Although this work paid the bills, her heart's desire was to write novels. Instead of saying someday or never, she woke at 5 a.m. each morning and wrote until 6:45, when she stopped to get her kids ready for school and then leave for work. Without those early morning writing sessions, it's doubtful she would ever have become the best-selling suspense novelist she is today.

Other writing mothers have inspired me as well ? including the LDS author Debbie Bowen (whose books include Nobody's Better Than You, Mom and WORK: Wonderful Opportunities for Raising Responsible Kids) and Peg Kehret who details her engaging and instructive story in Five Pages a Day: A Writer's Journey .

No Magic Involved

Although I am moved by these women's stories, reading them alone doesn't cause my writing life to magically appear in a poof of smoke from Aladdin's lamp. In ideal circumstances (when the kids are healthy and I have had enough rest), I opt for the early morning writing schedule. Not only are my kids generally sleeping during these pre-dawn hours, but the phone isn't ringing and I don't have pressing appointments to keep. Once I drag myself out of bed at 5 a.m., I find the house to be deliciously quiet, perfect for the uninterrupted writing time I crave.

My best writing occurs during these early morning sessions. Even so, if I relied on these sessions alone, I wouldn't get much writing done because I can rarely keep these wee morning hours for more than a few days at a time with my children still so young and my sleep so often interrupted. When large blocks of time aren't available I employ the “Sneaky Snippet” approach to writing. Using this approach, I sneak some writing in here and there throughout my days, perhaps twenty minutes just before my husband leaves for work or 15 minutes on those rare afternoons when my two youngest children graciously and inexplicably overlap their naps.

When I become frustrated with the squeeze-it-in-where-you-can approach I remember the scripture I learned as a young child: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass (Alma 37:6).” When I focus consistently on squeezing in small bits of writing time here and there, those small bits add up over time ? to sentences, paragraphs and eventually complete and satisfying pieces.

It Isn't Either/Or

If I had chosen a life without kids, I'd likely have more time to write; but I didn't choose such a life and I can't imagine a life without my precious children. Over the years I've learned that I don't have to pick between my children and my writing. With some determination and self-discipline I can choose both. By choosing to be not just a parent but a writing parent , I am a more passionate parent — one who teaches my children to build their dreams by building my own one morning or, when necessary, one sneaky snippet at a time.

Author's note: One Saturday afternoon not long ago, while sifting through my writing files, I stumbled across the above essay which I wrote more than four years ago. I can hardly believe how the time has flown since then. How hopeful I was at the time I wrote this essay ? hopeful that I would find ongoing success in combining writing and motherhood. And, although the writing-and-mothering road has been rough at times, I have ? with the Lord's guidance and my husband's support ? created a writing-and-mothering life that brings me and, I think, my family great joy.