My first flash fiction piece got its first rejection!
That’s all right–I have another story ready to send to Daily Science Fiction, and there are lots of other places to submit short fiction.
…If I could just find the time to search them out and read over their guidelines.
My daily schedule is…non-existent. Every day I get an unpredictable amount of sleep at unpredictable times. Everything (and I mean everything) takes a back seat to baby. Those of you who have kids know how it is.
How did/do you scrunch writing in alongside 24/7 baby care?
All Kinds of Yarns 
…Yeah, writing alongside baby care. That’s…TOTALLY a thing I’ve figured out.
Actually I really could. It takes a bit to adjust to baby life, but eventually you figure out how to feed her and change her and then coax her to sleep and perhaps she’ll stay asleep for a few hours. For those two or so hours of sleep, you can decide to sleep yourself, or you can do something. If you need sleep, always do that. But it’s going to take like a month to get comfortable with things and not feel overwhelmed. Don’t push yourself until you feel comfortable with the fact that your life is totally different now.
I always took a maternity leave from writing whenever I had a baby. If it’s good enough for the work force, it’s good enough for my hobby. After a month or two when I’ve adjusted to the new schedule, I start to ease back into writing during baby’s naps. It takes discipline not to do the other hundred things you wanted to do but haven’t before she goes to sleep, but you have to decide what your priority is. And if you decide that your priority is getting yourself some more sleep one day, that’s ok.
As for other markets, my research starts with places that qualify as a professional market towards joining SFWA. http://www.sfwa.org/about/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#short The only other place dedicated to flash fiction that I saw on that list was Flash Fiction Online, and my story has already been rejected from both DSF and FFO. Ah well, I’m starting to think it was meant to be longer than flash anyway.
I should also add that I have a friend who types her stories one handed while nursing. I attempted to do that a little this time around. I would rather read while nursing.
It gets both easier and harder as they get older. Mine is into crawling everywhere and exploring now, so if I’m lucky I get some time while she’s distracted. Often I’ve gotten my best writing time in by taking her somewhere with a large open space for her to crawl (read Bean Museum) and keep half an eye on her while I write- which has the added benefit of removing me from all my distractions. I don’t mind taking a break to feed her/change her diaper while I’m there because I know I’ll get back to writing after.
Or sometimes she’s sitting on my lap while I type comments making things extremely difficult.
Yeah. This is something I worry about for when I have kids. I’m bad enough at managing my time over just myself, how will I do it with baby?
So far the ideas I have are to keep baby close in a wrap on my body while I do stuff so my arms are free, and then when they get to moving around to have a play pen next to my desk so the bugger can’t escape while I do stuff.
That’s all I’ve got. Good luck.
And it’s okay to take a break and sleep, but you will conquer this challenge. I know you will! Because you’re awesome.