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Posts from the ‘Miranda’ Category

Aug 26

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Miranda: Multi-tasking my way to a new low

If you’re a mother, you know how to do at least six things at once.

But should you?

Apparently, it depends on just which six things you have in mind.

Yesterday, Lifehacker posted an interesting take on the pitfalls of multitasking in an interview with Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done. “Crenshaw explains the difference between ‘background tasking’ — like watching TV while exercising — and ‘switchtasking,’ juggling two tasks by refocusing your attention back and forth between them, and losing time and progress in the switch.” The Lifehacker blog post centers on how this issue plays out in the business world.

Interestingly, Simple Mom posted the mother’s analysis of the same topic yesterday:

A Mama’s Challenge
Here’s the irony. With children at home, it often feels impossible for us to focus on anything more than two minutes at a time, because we’re constantly interrupted. As soon as I sit down to update our bank accounts, my daughter wants me to sharpen her colored pencils, or my son has dropped his toy for the umpteenth time and needs help retrieving it.

It’s the stage of life, and it is what it is. Small children require a lot of hands-on, interactive parenting, and while it’s a short-lived job, it leaves you utterly exhausted come bedtime, doesn’t it?

Even though I’d love to single-task most of my day jobs, it just isn’t going to happen. What mom doesn’t multi-task all day long? You’ve got to change the diaper and answer the phone. You oftentimes need to read to your older one while you nurse your younger.

For Simple Mom, the bottom line is that “There are more important things in life than getting things done.”

While multi-tasking is often our only shot at snippets of creativity and seeming productivity, each of us has to determine our own threshold here. I happened to find my own personal limit yesterday. I share this publicly only in the hope that my story will serve as a cautionary tale to other mothers attempting the Superwoman thing.

At noon, I was finishing up the week’s menu plan, trying to make the grocery list, fixing an issue with the blog, answering e-mail, greeting my mother who’d just arrived at my house, nursing the baby, and trying to make sure my 3-year-old didn’t run off by himself for an opportunity to poop privately in his Pull-Up (we’re still toilet training). My daughter called from a friend’s house, asking for a ride home. She was in our neighborhood, within walking distance, but the timing was convenient so I said, “Sure — I’m running out to the grocery store with Grandma. We’ll pick you up on the way, in 15 minutes.”

What happened? I forgot to pick her up.

As in, I went to the grocery store without picking her up as planned. When she called me on my cell phone to ask where I was, I slipped into a heart-stopping abyss of guilt. Thankfully, since my own mother was in the car, she helped me strategize how to explain the situation to my daughter (as we drove at top speed to retrieve her) in an attempt to save her from a life on the therapist’s couch. My daughter (12 years old) gave me a good-natured ribbing, but even though she was gracious about the situation, I knew it had to have hurt. What is more painful to a mother than causing her own child pain?

I have never actually “forgotten” any of my children before, and I desperately hope never to do it again. I’d like to use sleep deprivation, an infant, a tally of five kids, pressing client work, and having my house on the market as some kind of defense. But sadly, there is no defense, and I know that. Perhaps, if I slow down just a little — and stop trying to do 34 things at one time — my brain will function a bit more efficiently. Until then, I have a lot of making up to do with my one and only daughter.

[Photo courtesy Foxtongue.]

Aug 25

4 Comments

Making time to create

At the blog Abundance, I came across an interesting post on making time to create. Marelisa, the Abundance blogger, includes many good ideas for getting yourself to show up and be effective — although you may find that many of the ideas are not altogether relevant to someone at home with little ones.

Children or no children, the author points out the necessity of prioritizing your creative time — and references that guru of business/life organization, Stephen Covey, with a reminder that we need to spend time on the important things in our lives, not just the most urgent ones. A significant distinction. While taking care of all the things that “need” to be taken care of, it’s easy to lose sight of the creative work that is important to you. This work is important not only because it satisfies you and moves you closer to realizing your creative dreams, but also because spending time being creative has a positive ripple effect in so many other areas of your life.

In helping to increase one’s focus on being creative and making the most of creative opportunities, I was intrigued by the following suggestion:

Establish a Clear Purpose for Every Creativity Session
When you sit down to create make sure that you have a clear sense of what you aim to accomplish during that particular creativity session. For instance, your goal could be to spend forty minutes researching an article on the effects of stress on creativity, to spend fifteen minutes creating an outline, and to spend the remainder of the time allotted to get started writing the article.

I really like this idea, and I don’t think I’ve thought about it quite so concretely before. Sometimes just “spend time writing” is a little too open-ended for me. Sure, it feels good to actually meet that goal and do some writing, but it feels even better if my goal is “finish chapter four” and I actually finish it.

Attaching a specific goal to your anticipated output also helps to raise its importance. It’s not just that you need to spend some time painting this week, you need to finish a sketch for a new still life you’ve had in mind. I think that this level of specificity helps to legitimize your work — which is vital in the battle of finding time for what’s important, not just the things that are urgent.

What do you think? Do you like working for something specific, or do you feel like that squashes your creative spark? When you’re working on a larger project, does it help to break that project into manageable pieces, and then focus consciously on each one?

And while we’re talking about time management for domestic life, here’s a nice refersher course for moms, from Simple Mom, if you need a little mentoring.

[Photo mosaic courtesy Leo Reynolds.]

Aug 12

4 Comments

Miranda: The torch of inspiration

The summer Olympics? Yeah, I’m watching. It’s always a thrill to see the world’s top athletes doing what they do best (and, at least for the swimmers, breaking world records right and left).  Whenever I witness someone at the top of his or her game, it makes me regret that I’m such a slug in comparison want to reach higher. (And who among the readers of this blog isn’t waving a few extra flags for Dara Torres?)

Whether the greatness is a gold medal for synchronized diving or a Nobel Prize for literature, I’m in awe. I went to see Doris Lessing reading at the Boston Public Library in 1997 (on tour to promote the second part of her autobiography, Walking in the Shade) and the place was a mob scene. Rabb, a huge lecture hall, was packed to overflowing and satellite seating areas with closed-circuit monitors were set up to accommodate some of the extra audience. Being in the presence (albeit, distance presence, although she did sign her book for me) of a true great was a thrilling experience. Obviously, Doris Lessing is beloved by many, and the fondness of her audience was palpable that night. While I have no illusion that I will ever approach anything that Lessing has created, it was hard not to be a little starstruck — to want to earn some of that success and popularity, to dream about going to bed at night knowing you are truly “great” at what matters to you. That maybe somehow the external evidence of success makes you believe “yes, I have accomplished something.”

When I watch the athletes in Beijing, I gobble up the “human interest” stories that detail the competitors’ “regular” life. What must it be like to work at your craft for 6 to 8 hours a day? What must it be like to win a gold medal; proof that you are the best in the world at what you have spent a lifetime pursuing?

Yet my life couldn’t be more opposite. Instead of creating a cocoon in which to concentrate all my effort toward a singular purpose, I have given birth to five children, ensuring that I spend a great many hours taking care of other people and their interests rather than my own. However, as Christa observed in a comment yesterday, that isn’t a reason to succumb to “can’t.” But it does add a few extra challenges. At some point, even if it’s decades away, I want to experience what it’s like to be fully immersed in my craft for an extended period of time. To at least live like a “great,” even if I’m just trying it on. Hopefully, at that point, I’ll be able to manage my child-free time better, and not be so adrift without the structure that motherhood brings.

Until then, I’ll keep cobbling my work together in bits and pieces, creating something around the edges. While I’m at it, I’ll keep my eye on the “greats,” hoping to pick up a few lessons on self-discipline, perserverance, and courage to use along the way. (Seriously, I wonder if I’m too old for a second career in beach volleyball…)

Aug 11

4 Comments

Writing advice from friends old and new

A few important reminders from writer Natalie Goldberg, artist and author of the uber-classic Writing Down the Bones. Like Julia Cameron, Goldberg asserts that writing is a basic element of connected existence for everyone, writers and non-writers alike.

Goldberg’s most recent book, An Old Friend from Far Away, was released in February. Old Friend is about writing personal memoir — exploring memories and connecting with the self in a way that opens doors for all who follow a creative path. I haven’t read the book yet, but Goldberg is certainly an “old friend” to many of us.

In this morning’s Boston Globe, novelist Allegra Goodman published the op-ed piece “So, you want to be a writer? Here’s how.” She advises against writing about yourself and advocates reading widely (of course) and finding a peaceful place to work (yeah, right).

And this is true for everyone, but especially for women: If you don’t value your own time, other people won’t either. Trust me, you can’t write a novel in stolen minutes outside your daughter’s tap class. Virginia Woolf declared that a woman needs a room of her own. Well, the room won’t help, if you don’t shut the door. Post a note. ‘Book in progress, please do not disturb unless you’re bleeding.’ Or these lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which I have adapted for writing mothers: ‘. . . Beware! Beware! / Her flashing eyes, her floating hair! Weave a circle round her thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread, / For she on honey-dew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.’

Unfortunately, the “don’t bother me unless you’re bleeding” routine really isn’t appropriate for mothers with children under the age of six, to my mind. What do you think?

Jul 31

2 Comments

Get creative and save the planet, too

The website 350.org is gathering momentum in the fight against global warming:

Many think of 350.org not as a campaign, but as a global collaborative art project to promote knowledge of the number 350. So let your creativity run wild by making your own art, crafts, and more to spread the word about 350 wherever you go. So far people are making 350.org t-shirts, quilts, paintings, and more – show us what you can come up with to get the word out in your community! Just be sure to share your creations with the rest of the 350 community by uploading a photo of it on our website and tagging it ‘art’. Below are a few resources and opportunities to plug into the project artistically.

350.org has teamed up with Craftster.org and other crafting organizations to sponsor a couple of exciting contests. Together we’re asking people to create quilts, t-shirts, hats, needlepoint designs, finger puppets, or whatever you can think of that helps spread the number 350 in their community. The submission period will be during the month of August, when participants will be able to enter their creations in the t-shirt design competition or the general craft competition – so get started early! Visit the contest website for more details.

Be free, create, and save the world. Who could be better equipped for the job of superhero than a bunch of creative mothers?

Jul 29

3 Comments

Reinventing creativity: Keri Smith update

explorerIf you read my previous post on Keri Smith, you already know I’m a huge fan. (Cathy is, too.) Recently, Keri posted a lengthy entry on her blog entitled “truthful things about being an artist and a mother” — the second time that she’s delved into the topic, and this time much more in depth. Keri is new to motherhood, and obviously her experience will evolve as her child grows, but I wonder what everyone here thinks about Keri’s perspective. Does it resonate? Keri feels intensely — and I only wish I’d been as passionate back when I had my first child. I can certainly relate to this point, however (and it echoes with what Kelly wrote this week):

“…i get into the most trouble when I am clinging to ‘needing’ to get something done in the time frame that I want it to be done. It is a difficult shift to realize that you no longer call the shots. If I attempt to control how and when, I end up very frustrated. Even knowing this fact I still fight it constantly.”

For most creative mothers, the experience comes down to this mantra, I think:

“and i believe one of the best gifts I can give to him is to allow my own creativity to flourish. Not necessarily in the all encompassing way that it did before. now I have to shrink things down a bit to fit it into the time I have. But it is still a huge part of me and I am excited to share it more with him as he grows.”

Keri also annouced last week that she’s publishing a new book, How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Art Life Museum and posted a fascinating preview. The idea of mapping your creativity into the floorplan of a museum is totally genius. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy of Explorer, which will be released in October. I can’t wait to get my hands on this one — and I’ll blog on its arrival in the fall. I can only imagine that Keri’s work will, over time, more concretely address the issues that creative mothers face. Fingers crossed.

Jul 24

19 Comments

Miranda: Choose your own creative ending

The following was inspired by Kelly’s recent post, which reminded me that I often struggle with the same issues over and over again. I figure out what works, then somehow “forget” what I figured out and find myself reinventing the wheel a few days/weeks/months later. So here’s a little lecture to myself. I thought I’d share, just in case there’s anything useful in here for you too.

The scenario (based on actual events):
A simple ambition: a trip to the park. It takes about 38 minutes to get out the door, but finally the 3-year-old and the 2-month-old are strapped into their carseats. The baby starts fussing before we’re even out of the driveway despite the fact that I just tanked him up before departure. During the 10-minute drive, I nearly break my arm off trying to reach behind my seat to rock the baby, who is increasingly frantic. When we finally get to the park, I squeal into a spot, leap out of the car, and extract the wailing baby from his carseat. I release the older child too, so that he can climb around in the car while I nurse his brother.

When the baby is sated and calm, I strap him into the front pack. I put hats on both boys, only to discover that my 3-year-old has pooped in his Pull-Up. I lie him down in the back of the minivan to change him. The baby, still in the frontpack, complains about being dangled horizontally during the process. Unfortunately I don’t have any more Pull-Ups in my diaper bag; just things for the baby and a couple of outgrown toddler diapers. I put a diaper on my son and he complains that it’s too small, and itchy on the sides. I notice that he walks a little funny. He’s not happy, but we make it to the sandbox.

The baby is still fussy; I’ve tucked a burp cloth under his chin but he manages to spit up all over both of us. In less than 6 minutes, the 3-year-old says he’s hot and wants to go home. We go back to the car and get a drink from yesterday’s water bottle. Before I can successfully convince my older child to stick it out for a few more minutes, the baby starts making pterodactyl noises and has a full-on diaper blow out, staining his clothes as well as my shirt. Second stint in the back of the car; I clean the baby and change his clothes. The preschooler still wants to go home. I feed the baby again. Then I strap both boys back into their seats and start the car.

Reaction option #1:
As I drive home, I can’t help but cry. My life is a continual struggle against a tidal wave of minutiae. My attempts to be a “good” mother are foiled at every turn. I have so little emotional margin that I snap at the kids for the littlest issues. I have no time to write. I have no time to exercise. I can’t fit in my non-maternity pants yet. I’m stress-eating bags of cookies when no one above the age of 2 is looking. My husband and I are adrift in the sea of separation that often arrives with a newborn. I’m exhausted. I’m overwhelmed and can’t deal with the fact that I really need to stop at the store and buy milk on the way home. And now my face is all red and puffy from crying.

Reaction option #2:
As I drive home, I can’t help but laugh. The morning was an exercise in futility, to the point of humor. But at least we got out of the house and enjoyed a few minutes of sunshine. The situation was a little stressful, but I kept my cool and didn’t yell at anyone or tear my hair out. Now we can stop at the store for milk, which I needed to get anyway. I call my husband to share the ridiculous story and a few giggles of commiseration.

How to increase the chances that your reaction will be #2:
As I noted in an earlier blog post, being creative on a regular basis is a natural stress reliever and perspective restorer. We know this. We know many things about how to live our lives with purpose and serenity. But, speaking for myself, it’s so easy to forget all those things that we worked so hard to learn. I CAN do a good job and feel capable and satisfied, but sometimes I forget that I’ve already figured it out.

The solution? Write it all down on one page. Create a mission statement. Make a list of the important things you’re doing, and why you’re doing them. Jot down your favorite mantras. Then, every morning, before you do anything else—or maybe while you’re brushing your teeth (tape the page to the inside of your medicine cabinet?)—read the page. The whole page. Read every word, take a few deep breaths, and remember who you are and what you’re doing. If at any time throughout the day you feel at loose ends, go back and read your page. Read it at night, too, if it helps. This is your centering point. Moi, I need centering.

Stay centered and be creative, wherever and however you can. You’ll be the mother you want to be, without even trying. (OK, there will be a little trying, but it won’t be as hard.) And maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to keep re-learning the things I know all too well.

So, today, I am going to take some time and create my centering sheet. If anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to share it.

Jul 22

10 Comments

Online Inspiration: Wordle

OK, I may be the last blogger on the face of the internet to post about Wordle. But I can’t help it; I have to jump on board. I’ve been playing with this toy for weeks now. Just for the benefit of those of you who haven’t read about Wordle elsewhere (there must be two of you!), here’s an intro.

Jonathan Feinberg at IBM created this addictive little toy. Wordle creates graphic word clouds using any text or RSS feed you enter. The size of each word is dependent on how frequently it appears in the text; graphics can be randomized or reset according to orientation, color scheme, and font.  Everything you create with Wordle can be used however you like (even for profit) under a Creative Commons attribution license. Paste in some text and see what happens. Here’s what I came up with when I pasted in my personal life mission statement (it’s seven years old but it still fits):

 

life mission

And here are two different examples of what you get using the Creative Construction feed (click on the images for a closer look):

Creative Construction
Creative Construction

Apparently we use the word “house” a lot! I think this is a result of our recent “My mother’s house” prompt, since the possessive “mother’s” is also showing predominantly in the word cloud.

You could use Wordle images to create all kinds of things. I’m thinking holiday cards…If you play with Wordle and come up with something cool (and I think it’s pretty much ALL cool!) save it to the Wordle gallery and paste a link to your design in a comment below. Ah, the beauty of words….

Jul 21

Online Inspiration: Creative Mom Podcast

Last week I happened across the Creative Mom Podcast:

“The Creative Mom Podcast started in June of 2006. The goal of the weekly show is to provide a creative talk show filled with good creative discussion and inspiring music for creative moms (and non-moms and artists and creatives of all types) to listen to for a feeling of community, understanding, and inspiration. The format for the show is fairly organic and changes often, but staples of the show include creative projects with kids, artist notes from the week in review, journaling ideas and suggestions, book reviews, blog mentions, weekly prompts, and, sometimes, creative non-fiction essays.”

Episode #104 includes a review of Danny Gregory‘s Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be the Artist You Truly Are, one of my favorite books. The podcast’s music selections may or may not be to your taste, but you might enjoy listening to a few episodes while you’re cooking dinner, folding laundry, or commuting.

Amy Cowen, the creator of the Creative Mom Podcast, also has a blog, Threaded Thoughts:

“At Threaded Thoughts, I’m tracking, tracing, mapping, and recording the many overlapping, intersecting, often-gossamer strands of motherhood and creativity that define me. From black and white to Technicolor, from lace weight to bulky, from watercolor to pen and ink, I’m following a path with no clear map other than an internal compass and the ever-changing lens of personal vision.”

Enjoy and create!

Jul 14

MacGyver Challenge: Clothes hangers

If you really want to stretch your creative powers into uncharted territory, consider ReadyMade magazine’s MacGyver Challenge. The idea is to turn something old and unwanted into something new and possibly useful, as in the MacGyver Luggage Challenge. For the new contest:

Hangers, no matter how dutifully we purge them, tend to multiply. Drawn to the dark corners of our closets (their favorite breeding ground), all sorts of species rapidly accumulate: gussied-up wire varieties clad in cardboard tubes and paper, molded plastic types in a rainbow of hues, wood-and-metal hybrids adorned with clips and hooks. Then they lurk, huddled at the end of the hanging bar in a tangled assemblage of triangular frames. Pending the future development of magical stasis-field closets, the influx will surely continue. What else can we do with them? The starchiest solution (made from any type of clothes hanger—the “no wire hangers, ever!” rule does not apply) wins a subscription and a ReadyMade T-shirt. {Deadline: July 21, 2008}

It turns out that some creatives — O Magazine included — are already using old pants hangers to display photographs.

Contest submission details here. I’m curious to see the results!

Jul 11

7 Comments

Breakfast with Miranda

There are several weeks’ worth of Friday Breakfast interviews in the works, but being summertime, the wonderful women I’ve lined up were all just a little too busy to complete their interviews in time for posting this week. Yesterday at lunch, I mentioned this dilemma to my colleague, Marie, in hopes of choosing one of the other article options I had in mind. But before I could even enumerate those ideas, Marie promptly suggested that I feature myself for Breakfast in order to fill the gap if nothing else came through. This seemed a little self-serving—and I wasn’t sure that I actually met my own criteria for an interview subject, but the continuity appealed, and so here I am: Interviewing myself (hopefully not a new low in navel-gazing). Thanks for humoring me, and please stay tuned for our forthcoming interviews.

miranda
CC: Please give us an intro to who you are, what you do, and your family headcount.
MHH: I am a part-time freelance writer and editor. My business partner and I work under the umbrella of Pen and Press, a communications consulting company—and we both work from our homes. On the personal front, I am married and have five children, ages 17, 14, 12, 3, and 2 months old. We have a Newfoundland dog, although I am really more of a cat person. Meow.

CC: Tell us about your writing life. Any other creative pursuits?
MHH: I am one of those typical writers who has read books and written stories since early childhood. I love books. They are practically sacred objects to me. The smell of a book; the weight of a book in my hands—let’s just say that I’ll never be an e-book convert.

I have published nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry. At present I have two main projects in the works. One is a novel set in Cornwall, England, during World War II—loosely based on the circumstances that led to my mother’s birth. At 200 pages, I’ve shelved that manuscript for the moment in favor of my nonfiction project. That manuscript is about—surprise, surprise—creative mothers: how to keep the creative self alive during the intensive years of motherhood. About 18 months ago, in the midst of my own struggles, I decided to seek out successful, creative women and try to identify the “secrets” of their success. After two dozen interviews, I had (amazingly, to me) found clear commonalities among those who were most satisfied with their creative lives. These findings became the premise of the book, which is about halfway complete today.

nomadic office

I’m delighted to say that an agent in New York is currently shopping my book proposal to the handful of editors who may be interested in my project. If, in the end, we have no takers, I will probably self-publish. I feel I owe it to all the women I’ve interviewed, and to everyone else who told me “Yes! Yes! I need your book!” And of course, the reason that I started writing my book in the first place was so that I would be able to read it myself!

I also like to paint, draw, and make things (I’ve been into birds’ nests of late). I really enjoy digital photography—I have a good camera, but I’m still learning the basics. I wish I was a good knitter, but all I can do is the straight “knit” stitch. Since I don’t know how to cast off, I once knit a mohair scarf that ended up being ten feet long before my mother finally knit a finished edge for me.

CC: What prompted you to start a blog?
MHH: I started Creative Construction because I wanted to build a community of women who share similar experiences of creativity and motherhood. I wanted to explore the ideas in my book and find more women to interview. I wanted to create a place where I would be held accountable to my stated intentions. This blog has served all those purposes and many, many more.

favorite spot

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
MHH: At present, I work on a portable table (hospital-room style) in my living room. This is where I sit for my two days of freelance work every week (when a sitter comes to my house), and where I squeeze in a little more work on the off days, write my daily haiku, pay bills, and basically manage everything in my existence (I am heavily Outlook dependent). I used to work in office space above our garage, but that large room serves many purposes and I ultimately gave it up to the teenagers. I still have a desk up there, but I never use it. My very favorite place to be, however, is in bed. I love to read in bed, sketch in bed, journal in bed, work on my laptop in bed. I could pretty much live in my bed, if I had the option.

CC: Do you have a schedule for your creative work?
MHH: No. I want one, desperately. The last time that I experienced prolific output was before my 3-year-old was born. My older kids were all in school, so I had school hours to myself. I developed a routine of working on my novel for three hours every morning, and then doing my “work work” (the stuff I get paid for). It felt great to do the “important” work first, rather than trying to shoehorn it into the edges later on, which of course never happens. It will be a while before I have those “mothers hours” again, however. I’ve also tried getting in an hour every evening, or using a daily word-count quota. For me, any of those devices lead to more writing than just leaving it all to chance.

I’m trying to be easy on myself right now and give in to life with a newborn and four other children. My reality defies having a schedule. Come September, things will be a little different (I think) and I will add more structure into my life.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
MHH: I struggle most with simply having enough minutes in the day to do all the things I need and want to do. I’m also grappling with having a house on the market and other woes, having an infant on my lap while I work, and trying to figure out how to manage it all. Certainly, exercising and getting back in shape are serious challenges for me right now.

CC: How much does guilt factor in your life?
MHH: I’m sad to say that I often feel guilty about most everything, because I don’t measure up to the expectations I set for myself—expectations that others around me describe as unrealistically high. The focalpoint: I routinely feel guilty about not being the mother I want to be, even though my shortcomings are in part due to having a large number of children and not having enough time as I need. I do make a conscious point of connecting personally with each child every day. That may sound ridiculous to some people, miranda avec infantsbut when you work, and have teenagers coming and going at all hours with friends in tow, a preschooler, and a newborn who’s glued to your chest 24/7, the old bumper sticker “have you hugged your child today” doesn’t actually seem so irrelevant. I also prepare a decent, home-cooked meal about five days a week. We all eat as a family (everyone who’s at home, that is), which always feel like an accomplishment. When I have time to cook, it feels creative and nurturing. When the baby is hungry, the preschooler is having a meltdown, and a teenager needs a ride somewhere, cooking becomes a stressful chore (more guilt).

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
MHH: I’m a visual person and I love going to museums and browsing through home decorating magazines. I also like dipping into poetry. Breathing deeply outdoors. Nothing inspires me more, however, than being in the presence of other people who are making their dreams into reality.

CC: What are your top five favorite blogs?
MHH: In my Google Reader, I actually subscribe to 48 blogs, and I read them all. I read the blogs of everyone who posts here at Creative Construction, and I keep tabs on many things that might be relevant to the readers here. I also subscribe to a bunch of design blogs that provide a feast of eye candy, and a handful that offer domestic inspiration. If I were forced to pick five non-CC bloggers, they would be:

(OK, so that was more than five…)

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
MHH: I am not a very self-indulgent person. I don’t even like this question. Who came up with these damn questions, anyway? (I suppose a more reasonable response is that I spend too much money on clothes for myself.)

CC: What are you reading right now?
MHH: At present I’m reading Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. It’s magical realism. The plot and characters are interesting thus far, but I need literary depth and a little poetry woven into the prose. I also started reading Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson, which Lisa of Bluestalking Reader reviewed. It promises to be everything that Garden Spells is not.

CC: What advice would you offer to other mothers struggling to be more creative?
MHH: Now this is a question that I can’t answer. Actually, I have a whole lot of advice to offer—advice gleaned from the experiences of the many women I’ve interviewed—but if I spill it all here, I won’t have much left to entice a publisher! So you’ll have to help me keep the faith in this project, which all of you have contributed to in wonderful ways.

Jul 7

3 Comments

In defense of parenthood

childhood

Over the weekend, Australian newspaper The Age published a strong and concise personal essay by Damon Young on how parenthood can actually enhance creativity, rather than serve a fatal blow:

Children are valuable, not simply for their own sake (even if this is the most important reason), but for their contribution to art. Parenthood affords insights and skills for the creative life – it’s not a distraction, but an inspiration and education.

For example, as the parent of a verbose, energetic little toddler, I’m more productive than when I was single. The reason for this is simple: I’ve learned to work with less. Dealing for months on end with sporadic working hours and flagging energy, I became accustomed to opportunistic work: getting pen to paper, whenever or wherever I had the opportunity. He’s asleep in a cafe? Great, time to finish off that chapter! He’s absorbed in Lego? Brilliant, I can catch up on important emails! Put simply, parenthood has disciplined me….Parenthood is also a font of extraordinary, lingering memories. In watching my son mature, I’m constantly faced with my own childhood, and the recollections of my parents. This is an incredible resource for a writer; a continuing, shifting pageant of impression and emotion. This can be confronting, no doubt – but it’s an extraordinary creative cache.

It’s a nice confidence booster. Read the full piece here.

(That’s a photo of mine. I’m a complete amateur, but I find that digital photography is a rewarding way to blend motherhood and creativity. For more on how a pro does just that, read Bec Thomas’s interview below. And many thanks to my dear friend Toni Small, who visited recently and gave me a long-anticipated mini workshop on photographic prinicples and training the eye.)

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