Another mother writer’s NaNoWriMo win

Stephanie Stambaugh, a blogger and writer living in Colorado, is a friend of Studio Mothers via Twitter. I had noted that Stephanie — also a mother of two — successfully completed NaNoWriMo, and I asked her how she pulled off that feat. Stephanie recently posted a blog-post response, which you may enjoy: Finally, My Post-NaNoWriMo Debriefing. Stephanie’s process actually involved her oldest child, and was facilitated by the younger one. I love the concept of working with your children around, rather than working around your children, as in, circumventing an obstracle. The more we can blend creativity and motherhood the more likely we are to feel “whole”; less compartmentalized. This strategy wouldn’t quite translate to parenting toddlers, but at least it gives the mothers of little ones something to look forward to.

An excerpt from Stephanie’s post:

Over the course of the writing month and over the past few weeks I have been asked by numerous people, “How’d you do it? How did you find time to write a novel?” First, It would be easy enough to answer those questions by simply saying I made time to write it because that’s what writers do, they give up their ideas of being in the so called “real world” to sit and hold words in their mind’s eye and in the palm of their hands for hours on end. That’s our job and so that’s what I did, to a point.

What I actually did was give myself permission to do what I wanted to do instead of sabotaging myself by that nagging voice that plagues all writers. You know what it says? It screams out daily at you too, right? It says, ”What’s the point? I’ve got better things to do, don’t I? Besides, it’ll never be published anyway.” Now I am not saying that voice wasn’t lurking out there just outside my door, waiting for me to invite it in. What I am saying is that I nodded my head to its shrill little demanding attitude and then told it politely to go to hell. I made a conscience choice not to let the dirty bugger into my office on November 1st and now that it is December 14th it won’t ever show its sick little face here again if it knows what’s good for it.

But there was also three other things that helped me “do it.” The first was that I had the greatest motivation any writer can have and that motivation was from my teenage son who did NaNoWriMo right along with me. I did not have to force him to do it as I am lucky enough to have given birth to not just one but two kiddos who have a wonderful passion for stories. But when my oldest said he wanted to do NaNoWriMo with me, it gave me more backbone than I knew I had because I stood a little taller and prouder just by his commitment to do it.

Secondly, I could not have done it without the support of my youngest child who kept busy for hours writing his own comic books and playing quietly until his brother and I were finished writing for the day. Then right along with him was my husband who actually didn’t knock on my office door for once. I think he saw that determined look in my eye and actually liked it or maybe he just feared it too like the way the dirty little nagging voice of doubt feared it.

Read the full post here. Congratulations on your accomplishment, Stephanie! We look forward to hearing more from you in future.