OLIVIA WILDENSTEIN

Award Winning Mystery Author.

This morning, after brushing two sets of teeth and two tiny baby teeth, after dressing two of my kids and advising the third against wearing shorts in the fall, after warming milks and racing to the bakery to buy pains au chocolat and whole wheat bread, after swallowing said bread while driving to school, I ran 18.64 miles. This is a pretty normal day in my life right now. Even the running, as I’m training for the New York City marathon.

Although I reassure you, I don’t run 3+ hours a day, I feel like I’m always running. I run after time, after success; I run to the supermarket; I run to pick up my kids from judo; I run to make it home for dinner after writing too late into the evening; sometimes, I even run in my dreams. The only time I don’t run is when I write. The pendulum stops swinging when I sit down in front of my laptop. I take off my watch, plug in my headphones, and orchestrate my characters’ lives. Time slows. Or rather, I slow down.

I write in spurts of two or three hours. Some days, I’ll get four in, and some days I’ll get none, because being a mom, being a wife, and sports training doesn’t leave much time for anything else. When I can’t write, I’ll feel antsy, even a little depressed. And when I take too much time away from my family, I’ll feel guilt-ridden. What if my seven-year-old lost another tooth, and I missed it? What if my four-year-old learned to do a cartwheel, and I wasn’t there? What if my 10-month old took her first steps while I was shaping my newest plot? What if my husband needed to vent about work, and he came home to an empty house?

Every day, I attempt to find the right balance, and every night, I decide that a balanced life, like a pulse, is a flat life. Give me ups and downs, and tears and smiles, and hills and valleys, because such is life. And I am very much alive.

Olivia Wildenstein is an award-winning author who writes Young Adult and New Adult fiction full of people she wishes were real, even though she probably would have very little time to spend with them.