Most people seem to think the title of this blog (Write Like A Mother) is because I curse like a sailor and left the last word off the title for sensibility’s sake. Those people are wrong for a couple of reasons.
1) I have no sensibility. I curse a lot, and generally don’t care who hears it. Sorry, not sorry. (Okay, I apologize to my children’s teachers. I swear I told them they can’t swear at school. Is it my fault that they forgot?)
2) I’m a mother and an author. Literally, I write like a mother of three humans who come before my (small but much-loved) readership.
As mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, (also fathers, brothers, sons, uncles,) Okay, let’s just go with “As humans,” we can’t always prioritize OUR wants and desires. (I guess we can, but then we’ll likely end up alone.) Sometimes writing gets pushed aside for other things. This past summer, nearly ALL of my writing time has gone to other things that took priority.
For the past three months I’ve felt guilty that my book is back from the editor, and I haven’t finished the edits. I finished most of them; all of the easy ones are done. However, there are some areas that required thinking and filling plot holes and rewriting. If you’ve ever rewritten part of a novel, you know that you generally have to go back and rewrite other parts of the novel to make everything cohesive.
Personally, it’s impossible for me to concentrate while my kids are running around screaming (aka “being kids”). It’s unbelievably hard to get into something when I feel like I’m in the eye of a storm. Everywhere I look in my house is chaos. We have dressers in our living room because our bedroom walls were torn down and rebuilt in different areas. We were without a real kitchen for over a month. Literally, storing things in giant storage tubs in the living room and entry way.
Now, finally, we’re nearing the end of the big stuff on the house, and I’m tired of beating myself up about not releasing a book over the summer and mastering marketing.
My summer was productive. I didn’t release a book, but:
- the master suite in our home is 75% done (I have a bed again instead of just a mattress on the floor),
- our kitchen is 90% done (we have some minor weekend projects to do),
- my kids survived without any trips to the ER (knock on wood),
- I spent lots of time snuggling with Andre before he left us for Rainbow Bridge (and if you know me personally, you know this was a TOP priority for me),
- we planted some flowers (most are still alive),
- we strengthened some friendships,
- I worked on my novel Escape from Quarry Point, and it’s nearly ready to go back to the editor,
- I took a class about writing a series and have fleshed out some ideas for my next 3-5 books,
- I beta read some awesome books that hopefully will be coming out soon,
- and, I enjoyed spending time with my kids (most days).
Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely need to take time for yourself. That whole “put your oxygen mask on before helping others” thing is true. But sometimes, taking care of myself looks like binge watching Schitt’s Creek on Netflix. (It’s stupid, but entertaining.) Sometimes, it’s lying in the hammock figuring out what animal the clouds most resemble. And sometimes, it’s just accepting that you can’t do everything at once.
For me, the mess of remodeling was causing too much stress for me to even think about writing. I had to do whatever I could to get the remodeling done. I wasn’t building walls, or cutting chunks of the old roof off, but keeping my husband and his helpers fed and supplied had a better return than screaming “Dammit! I’m working. Figure it out yourself.”
So, I just want to tell you, if you’re a writer who’s not writing right now, you’re still a writer. You’re just not writing right now. Stop listening to those people who tell you that you must write daily or you’re not a writer. If you identify as a writer, you’re a writer dammit!
My initial goal with this blog was to share tips on how to be a mother and write. I still hope to do that. I have lots of ideas:
- time-saving tips for chores around the house
- software reviews
- how to articles for Mac software for writing your book (why aren’t there more articles about how to use MS Word to its fullest potential on a Mac?)
Writing is a priority for me in the grand scheme of life, but for this season of my life, finishing my house and keeping my kids alive trumps releasing a book I’m not happy with. So if this post resonates with you, feel free to bookmark my page, or sign up to get notified when I post something new (there’s a link over there on the right). I don’t have a set schedule to post, but it likely won’t be too often, because I…