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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Feb 19

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Georgia: Those Literary Mamas Know How to Inspire

georgiaSomething wonderful happened last Friday night.

It was one of those nights that stands out and can inspire for days, months, who knows…even years. I had put the event on my Facebook calendar at least a month in advance.

In conjunction with the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference being held in Chicago, Literary Mama editors and columnists were having a reading at an independent bookstore. I even put it on my computer calendar, I was determined to go and nothing was going to stop me from going.

Well nothing was going to stop me, but me. I was feeling down last Friday and after weeks of eying the event on the computer, I decided I didn’t want to make the 20-mile trek to the bookstore. I had a dozen excellent excuses, like staying home and getting some things done (not sure what things and they never get done). Like many times before I was talking myself out of getting out there and meeting people. It’s just so much easier to just slip on some pajamas and fall into someone else’s reality on TV. Yet, at the last minute I forced myself to get dressed and told my husband, after changing my mind a dozen times, that I was in fact going out.

My mom, who now lives with us, suggested I invite my husband to go with. My four-year-old son miraculously agreed that he would be fine with Grandma, and he would let her put him to bed. In shock, I invited my husband to join me, he agreed, and we set off across Chicago to the quaint neighborhood of Andersonville.

My husband was relieved that there was another man in the audience, and the “mamas” were a friendly bunch. It was an intimate gathering of about 20 people. One by one different “literary mamas” took the stage and read their work.

It was truly amazing to hear these women, these mothers, talk about their struggles and triumphs with children, parents, partners, the world, and even themselves. I was already captivated by their written words, and now hearing their powerful words in their own voices, was all the more moving. The essay read by Susan Ito especially encouraged me. She writes a regular column at Literary Mama called “Life in the Sandwich,” which she explained follows the adventure of her family since her elderly mother moved in. Personally, my dad who is 90 and my mom who is 82 recently moved in with us in our “cozy” house. Ito’s experiences in her piece entitled “McMemories” were mirrors to my own.

After the reading, I bought a book I couldn’t afford (unfortunately I couldn’t buy all of the books by the group), and my husband and I went to find a place to eat. We got a delicious pizza and calamari at a charming restaurant on the corner, where we discussed the readings and my own writing projects. It was a real adult date, something that has been rare in the past four plus years.

You must check out the website of Literary Mama (“the magazine for the maternally inclined”) if you haven’t already. And the many books that members of this group has generated such as The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, Literary Mama: Writing for the Maternally Inclined, A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption, Real Life & Liars (forthcoming novel by Kristina Riggle) and Mama, PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life.

Feb 19

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Brittany: A New Focus

Once upon a time I made dolls. It started when I was little, maybe even before elementary school. My great-grandmother, a seamstress, often babysat me and her house was a treasure trove of fabric scraps, spare yarn, and mismatched buttons. One day I asked her if I could make a doll. She showed me how to make a pattern, supervised as I hand-sewed the body, and basically left to my disposal her arsenal of craft supplies.

I made dozens of dolls after that. Long before I was able to write, I used dollmaking as a kinetic activity to tap into my creativity. As I got older, writing supplanted dollmaking as creative hobby #1, but I still made dolls whenever I needed a jumpstart. I have made a number of different types of dolls over the years, but my favorites are made of cloth, with faces sculpted with the needle. I was working on my face-sculpting technique when life intervened. I graduated from college, found a job, had two boys who cared little for needlecraft and even less for dolls, and before I knew it, it had been years since I’d attempted a new project. I kept saying I wanted to make dolls again, but always put it off.  There were only so many hours in the day and if I was going to indulge in a hobby, writing always won out.

But lately, I haven’t had much interest in writing. The final push to finish my novel, combined with my months-long recovery from whooping cough and pneumonia have left me stripped and bare and uninspired. John is also becoming more curious and isn’t happy to sit idly by anymore while I type page after page. I’ve been through this before with Sam, but this time, instead of trying to fight it, I just put the writing aside. It’s no longer an all-consuming fire for me. I’m still writing, never fear, but only in a piddling manner, writing in fits and starts, and only when the mood strikes me.  My life is chaotic right now, and to force yet another to-do on myself would be counter-productive.

Which brings me to Saturday…

It was Valentine’s, and aside from the usual card exchange with Tom, was an ordinary day in every regard. We got up early to take Sam to his gym class, ran a few errands before lunchtime, came home, put the boys down for naps, Tom got to work finishing the last of the tile in the powder room and entryway, I went to my novelist’s critique group. It was a good time, we all laughed, I got excellent feedback, drove home. And yet I found myself totally overwhelmed with angst. There was no reason for it, but nonetheless, it was there — this undeniable feeling of anxiety and dread.

In the meantime, my brother-in-law got engaged, and posted the news on Facebook for all to see. I got online as soon as I got home, hoping I would be comforted by the familiarity of my laptop, and saw his change in status. I couldn’t be happier for them. But I also felt like it was about time he proposed to her.

An image popped into my head of Cupid, wearing oversized boxing gloves, hitting slowpoke boyfriends upside the head on Valentine’s Day. My fingers began itching to sew him. I went upstairs and found the perfect fabrics in my long-neglected stash of craft supplies. I got to work on him right away, and slowly the anxiety began to fade.

He was a quick project as far as dolls go. I finished him Sunday afternoon. Unlike a novel, where train of thought matters, I could pick him up and put him down as needed. Sam sat beside me while I sewed, entranced with his train videos, and I was able to escape a bit more deeply into my sewing than I ever could have with my writing. I’ve needed that — the ability to shut out the rest of the world like that — and having that time in my own head was just what I needed to shrug off the funk I was in.

Since then, I have felt a bit of my spirit revive. I am a little bit happier now that I have reclaimed a bit of my former self. My writing life is still on the horizon, but for now, my new focus is on the dolls.

[Editor’s note: Brittany’s cupid doll won this week’s creativity contest!]

Feb 18

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Cathy: Can someone please explain how all the time in the world disappears without writing?

[Editor’s note: Shortly after she submitted this post on Monday, Cathy wrote to ask me not to publish it after all. She worried that her post sounded too whiny. I told Cathy that I thought she didn’t sound whiny at all, and that she was covering ground that many of us can relate to. (Me, for one!) At my urging, she agreed to the posting. Thanks, Cathy!]

Right now, I am a stay-at-home mother with a baby who won’t sleep off of me and must have one hand pinching, rubbing, or tweaking my muffin-top under my shirt at virtually all times, not just when she’s nursing. I look around my home, and think I need to do laundry, wash dishes, plan meals better, etc., but feel like I am accomplishing nothing because of little miss clingy or I’m on the chase because she must crawl, cruise, etc in the rare moments she is not attached to me. I know the regulars here are thinking my lack of sleep and how Baby C won’t sleep off of me are becoming like a Zen mantra of complaint: noooo sleeeeep….oooommmm…..noooo sleeeeeep. I’m sorry, but this is what I’m living right now. I have raised two other kids out of this phase and nannied a handful of others when the boys were little, so I know not all babies are this clingy and shallow sleeping. Just mine, apparently.

I must add that while it seems she is preventing me from getting anything done, she is generally a pretty mellow baby who is kicking my keyboard when I’m not giving her my full attention because I’m trying to have a creative life or a somewhat internet based social life. She’s not a screamer, like at times, my eldest could be, or always, like my second was. She’s generally the most pleasant baby I have known. But if I put her down in the port-a-crib, she won’t sleep and fusses for me like I’m breaking her heart. If she’s crawling around when I’m trying to accomplish something, S (by some miracle) is the only person who can pick her up and put her in the port-a-crib, and she’ll entertain herself nicely for enough time to make dinner, as long as she can see me hovering at the stove.

Now I can and do easily and often analyze the part I’m playing in this, such as giving in to her baby demands when I should let her be, put her down, train her to sleep off of me, etc. But then I turn around and don’t remedy it with all the advice I can readily give others. Part of me says, I’m 43, I had no business having this baby at this age, but in having her, I appreciate and want to hold her and have much more patience and appreciation for her than I did when my boys were little and I was 10 and more years younger, working, etc. I think my age difference is very telling about patience and perspective.

However, I’m trying to finish writing a novel. It’s not a very big or complicated one, it’s a children’s novel for goodness sake! A good old friend peeks in on this blog, but doesn’t comment because he’s a guy. He calls periodically with concern. He’ll say things like: are you sure now is the best time for you to be trying to finish the novel — because I remember when my son was that age, and it was impossible to write between lack of sleep and divided attentions. I thank him, tell him, I need to finish it now because I’m that close, and if I can sell it, it may bring some much needed income and assuage my guilt in that department.

Then I think: when S was in part time integrated preschool thru first grade and K was in kindergarten through fourth grade, I was working upwards of three part-time jobs, going through an unpleasant divorce that took forever, and began writing this novel. I was able to write it in the 30-minute snatches between my arrival home from job number one and when S’s bus arrived. I was extremely stressed, had no time, little to no child care, terrible finances, yet I wrote and managed my home by myself. And read The New Yorker within the week, novels and the collected poems of Robert Penn Warren repeatedly. I also journalled a la The Artist’s Way every morning while staving off the boys with the mantra “mommy’s morning pages!” How the heck did I manage all of that and start a relationship with my current husband, too? I seem to recall passing out on him often when we’d rent a movie at the beginning of our relationship. He claims that’s why he fell in love with me: I drooled on his shirt sitting on his couch on our second date.

Now I can barely see the time fly by while I feel like I am incapable of reading a book, doing anything beyond the wash and fold stage of laundry re: housework, yet I am home all the time! I have no brain to maintain a level of writing on a regular basis that I can honestly say: yeah, that sustains from the last part, and I can be proud of it. Is it that in being able to be more present for the baby, at my age, I am also less able to multitask in the ways I needed to at a much more stressful albeit younger time in my life? Or is it merely, I have baby-fied lack of sleep brain and forgot exactly how that taxes the mind from when my boys were also less than ideally sleeping babies?

I also know that I don’t feel like I’m having a heart attack for most of the day, because my stress level is nowhere near what it was then.

Someone please explain. Maybe I’m just having an overly critical moment. I did only write the first not quite 30 pages then, now I’m on page 85, after a four-year hiatus.

Feb 17

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Writing and motherhood

From the Irish Independent, a glimpse into the life of Cathy Kelly, best-selling writer and mother of 5-year-old twins. The piece includes her own writing tips.

cathykelly_278722tSince discovering motherhood, Cathy admits that her writing schedule has changed. “I don’t want the boys to think they aren’t as important as my work, so I tend to do the real ‘working mother’ thing, which means everything fits around them. If I’m in trouble near the end of a book, I just work at night when they go to bed, which I hate doing, but sometimes it’s the only way. I’d prefer to be there for them in the afternoon.

“John and I get the boys ready for school, then we drive them in and I start working at my desk from 9.30am until 2pm. I always pick the boys up. You can count on one hand the amount of times I haven’t dropped or picked them up. My theory would be to do another hour of writing after they come home, but a lot of the time that doesn’t work out very well because my study is in the house and they come in and out. They think it’s their computer that I get to work on. They call what I do ‘mummy’s typing’.”

No matter where she is, Cathy will always write something daily, even on holidays. “Maybe it goes back to the journalism days where I worked full-time and wrote three books; I got so used to working all the time that I got used to working on holidays. Now, when we go down to Spain, I take a laptop.”

Read the full article here.

Feb 16

7 Comments

Johanna: An introduction

dscn0865I recently found this site via one of my favorite bloggers, Ophelia Rising. I am so excited and honored to be joining such a creative, diverse, and supportive network!

I stopped working after the birth of my first child two years ago to become a full-time mother. I loved being a stay-at-home mom, but also wished to better integrate my creative and intellectual sides. I missed the intellectual and creative stimulus of my former job as assistant publisher of a wine trade magazine. I started my blog, Ecology of a Woman, in an effort to maintain a sense of self and coherent thought! I needed a forum in which to express myself on another level.

My goal is to become a successful freelance writer and author. Writing has been calling me for a long time now but I have never had the time for it because I was too busy working! I did publish a couple of articles in the wine magazine but, because it was a wine journal, my voice was dictated by its style. I am now in search of my own style and unique voice.

I thought motherhood would be the perfect time to begin a freelance career, that I would have the freedom and energy to find my voice and begin. I can hear the laughing now — freedom and energy? Not words that rhyme very often with stay-at-home mom! I am now wiser, but I am determined to integrate a successful writing career into my life as a mother.

Although it is a challenge to integrate the two, motherhood and writing, it is truly the life I have always wanted. I have always wanted to simply live life in an interested and curious way and write about it. And here is my chance, truly, but it is more challenging with a child. But also more conducive, in a way. There’s a lot of writing material in motherhood!

As for who I am besides mother and aspiring writer, I am also passionate about plants, gardening, wine and food, nature, running, and other cultures and traveling. I am planning my first-ever trail race this June! My husband works as an underwater construction diver which is not a regular 9-5 job, as you can imagine! His work requires quite a bit of travel. This presents yet another layer to our lives as I am alone quite a bit of the time raising our daughter, and we also spend quite a bit of time traveling to visit my husband on various jobs. When my husband is working, he is generally gone for weeks at a time. The upside of this is that when he isn’t working, we get the entire stretch of time together as a family. We also have a very energetic golden retriever!

tn-2My family is huge, it’s a tribe! I have nine brothers and sisters, four full sisters from my mom and five half brothers and sisters from my father’s previous marriages. My father is 87! Gives one perspective! I am very frugal thanks to his Depression upbringing. He was a designer and built some beautiful homes in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, lots of redwood and glass. Very Zen, Big Sur, California style. My mother is a recently retired Latin teacher who comes from a literary background. She home taught all four of her daughters. She is very elegant and European. I also have a tribe of friends and am very social, although I find increasingly as I get older that I need more and more time to myself.

We grew up in a very bohemian lifestyle that included a stretch of time living out of our VW bus, traveling around California! You wonder where I get my gypsy tendencies! I grew up half the time in a central California beach town and the other half in a tiny town in northern California. We were camped there on our extended VW road trip when it turned winter and, instead of heading back home, my father and mother instead decided to buy a house right there and then and that is how we ended up having two homes from living in a third (bus)!

Again, I cannot believe my luck to have found this site. It is just what I needed to get more serious about my writing and it is just the environment in which I think I can grow as a writer. I so look forward to getting to know more about each one of you and exchanging creative thoughts, ideas, and plans!

Feb 9

8 Comments

Cathy: Yard work is a blessing

trellisfix-003I know most people feel toward yard work the way I feel about dentists. I’d rather let my teeth rot in my mouth than go and deal with the dentist head on, mouth open. But I love yard work, especially now, for a few reasons.

Last Saturday, I did a lot of yard work. I cut back the crazy roses and repaired the trellis for this year’s crop, and reset it so they won’t grow up into the siding. I cut back the holly that has no business being taller than me or overwhelming the rest of the front landscaping. It was a great day to be wearing a thick old Irish fisherman’s wool sweater and a good pair of gardening gloves, as I dealt with all those thorny things. I dug the tarp out of the dirt pile that never really made it behind the back fence into the gardens and has started growing into a grassy knoll at the side of the garage. I loaded thorny things galore onto the tarp. I dragged it to the fence and headed out back for more branches and brambles.

I removed all the branches from the old pine mulch pile I started the first autumn in the house. From under those branches, etc, is now a beautiful bed of piney compost, and later I consulted with the garden center lady about what would grow in a shady piney corner, and think I came up with a new corner of interest plan. But first I moved those branches as well as fodder from the surrounding trees into the wheelbarrow, wheeled it over to the fence and lifted it all over and threw it on the tarp. I then dragged the tarp to the driveway, and put the Christmas tree and wreath that the garbage company wouldn’t take away for three weeks, and added that to the tarp. Then I recruited my dear Honey’s aid to remove the seat in my van and get the tarpful of yard waste into the back of the van and took it all to the dump. In the end we had to tie the tree to the top, but hey, we got a lot done. Er, I got a lot done in the yard. He helped at the end. There was no wind and it was about forty degrees — a lovely day to work up a sweat outside and have cool fresh air to breathe.

While I was out there, somehow my mind cleared and I didn’t even have to think about the novel or the kids or my Honey or not having an income. I just enjoyed being out there and communing with my piece of suburban Mother Nature. I like to think I made her a little prettier and she appreciated it. I definitely got the scragglies out of her hair.

The next morning in the shower, it occurred to me that one year ago I went to church with a walker. I was seven months pregnant and had no business with my complications getting out of bed to do anything. I had the wheelchair in the back of my van, but I refused to use it. I dragged my son K along and he helped me in and out, carried my purse and bottle of water, held doors, etc. It was also the first time I attended that church, but I was in serious need of some spiritual gathering and to get out of my stir-crazy bed.

So last Sunday, I ended up crying in front of the whole congregation that I’m just starting to get to know, about how far I’ve come from not walking to yard work since my first appearance there last February. I proclaimed in front of all with shaky voice and tear-filled eyes, “I know most people view yard work as a curse, but to me it is a blessed thing — especially since I was able to clear my yard by myself yesterday.” I think I was trying to say, don’t take things for granted, because you have a home, you can bend over and pick up sticks in your yard. It’s the simple things in life we must always appreciate. But I blubbered.

Then Monday, mind uncluttered, I sat down to write as soon as Baby C was asleep. Everything flowed beautifully. I was able to get my main character out of his clammed up state and began to resolve his issues and get him some confidence. Or the start of it, anyway. Then Baby C woke, but I nursed her back down a little and was able to plot out the wrap up of the book in one-liners for the coming scenes. I wrote a solid five pages of the manuscript then plotted the rest out!

Chipper from my productivity, I washed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher, handed the baby to grandma when she came home so that I could clean the kitchen. Then I promptly readied the stroller and leash and took baby and dog and me for a good refreshing walk. I saw cormorants and geese in the lake at my little bench, where I chugged my bottle of water and gave Baby C her juice. When she and Lucy started showing their signs of restlessness (such as dropping cup off side of stroller into goose poo), I hopped up and took off for home. I haven’t hopped up since well before I was pregnant! She was 10 months old as of Sunday, and I can now hop up, in spirit, in yard work, and in my writing. That’s why I love yard work. It feels good to accomplish something physically. It frees your mind and spring is on its way, so I get to garden again. And as long as I can garden, the writing and a whole lot else seem to come much easier.

Feb 6

2 Comments

Open House

Happy Friday, friends! Here’s a roundup of the latest interesting bits from Creative Construction community members.

  1. Kate Hopper is teaching an online version of her Mother Words writing class.
  2. Bethany Hiitola is capturing late-night creative inspiration on her cell phone.
  3. Alana Kirk Gillham is vaccuming under the couch instead of writing.
  4. Elizabeth Beck hung her mother and daughter art show.
  5. Emma-Jane Rosenberg drew and painted some beautiful tomatoes.
  6. Suzanne Kamata noted her publisher’s novel contest.
  7. Liz Hum is building new muscles. Really.

I hope all February Finish-a-thon participants have a rewarding weekend! (Well, and everyone else who reads this, too.) Any great ideas for managing to fit family time, household time, and creativity time all into the same weekend?

Feb 2

7 Comments

Carmen: Taking the Plunge

PhotobucketIn October, I received an email from Miranda requesting a  “Breakfast with Carmen” interview and I was super excited. I had never had anyone request an interview with me before. I think I was giddy all day at the thought of someone being genuinely interested in learning more about me. What I didn’t know, was that the Universe was trying to tell me something. This interview was my first hint. Sometimes I need to be smacked over the head and handed a sign in order to see things for how they really are.

About a month after the interview, the night before my 32nd birthday, I sat down and wrote my intentions for the coming year. One of my intentions is to write more. I journal a great deal, but I’m not always brave enough to actually share my innermost thoughts, hopes and dreams.

Putting my raw emotions out there always makes me feel extremely vulnerable and for the few seconds before I sit the “submit” button, the butterflies start going berserk and the fear sets in and my thoughts shift to questions of…  What if they make fun of me? What if that sounds crazy? What if I’m the only one that feels that way? and when I’m strong enough, I take a deep breath and surrender. I let go of the fear for that split second to click submit. Then comes relief and then doubt follows.

On the rare occasion that I open myself up and share, I always get the most amazing feedback and encouragement from other bloggers and I feel validated somehow. I’m learning to embrace this vulnerability and sit with it. Each time I go through this process, I grow and I feel the Universe winking at me, like she knew all along that I had it in me.

It occurred to me about a month ago that this community is the perfect place to begin my writing and so I got in touch with Miranda and within minutes, I was all set as a contributor. Then I froze. Fear set in. The questions came… What if they make fun of me? What if that sounds crazy? What if I’m the only one that feels that way? and eventually it all come down to shame and the dreaded question… What if I’m not good enough?

I think that I was onto something in one of my brave moments when I wrote, “I suppose the only way to find out is to “do” while continuing to dream. I suppose I don’t have to know how, I just have to start.”

So this is my beginning at Creative Construction. I could have started this journey sooner, when the Universal hints started coming my way, but I won’t “should” on myself. For all I know the timing could be absolutely perfect! I will be back soon writing from my heart.

Go easy on me and I will attempt to go easy on myself in the process.

Namasté,

Carmen

Jan 30

13 Comments

Breakfast with Jacqui

It’s Breakfast time! Enjoy the latest in our bi-weekly visits with creative mothers from the blogosphere: Meet Jacqui Robbins, children’s author, blogger, and mother of two. Jacqui is funny and down-to-Earth — just what you need in order to start your day with a smile and a dollop of inspiration. Sunny-side up, please!

jrCC: Please give us an intro to who you are, what you do, and your family headcount.
JR: My name is Jacqui Robbins. I’m a children’s author, sometime teacher, and parent to Tinkerbell, age 6, and Captain Destructo, who is 2 in every way. I live in Michigan with my kids and husband and two cats, a fish, and, lately, two families of attic squirrels against whom I battle daily. I am a 37-year-old who feels 25 or 98, depending on the day.

CC: Tell us about your children’s books and other creative endeavors.
JR: My first book, The New Girl…And Me, illustrated by Matt Phelan, came out in 2006 and Two of a Kind (also illustrated by Matt) comes out this summer. I was a first grade teacher for many years and my books all reflect how hard social drama can be when you’re six. In The New Girl…and Me, it’s Shakeeta’s first day at school. Mia would like to show Shakeeta around, or to learn more about her pet iguana, but how do you start talking to someone who might punch you in the head?

Two of a Kind is about mean girls. You know those two girls in your class who won’t let anyone play with them and are somehow still the most popular? Yeah, them. What if they finally let you play but then they made fun of your best friend?

Right now I am working on a chapter book. It’s a mystery/adventure story with a hint of romance but not too much. I’m in the first draft stage, so I’m still in love with it.

I’m also writing a non-fiction book with my sister called Egghead and Monkey Girl Kick It Old School, in which two sisters (us) raised in the heart of feminism realize they never learned to do any traditional women’s work and can barely feed themselves, and set out to learn everything they need to be domestic goddesses, and to teach it to other domestically challenged souls, while maintaining their fundamentally feminist attitudes.

CC: What prompted you to start a blog? What keeps you going?
JR: I always blogged. I used to write regular group letters, then e-mails and send them to all my friends and family. But I was insecure. I thought you had to be, I don’t know, famous or INVITED to blog, so I came late to the game. Also, it took me a while to find the voice of Jacqui’s Room. I’m a picture book author, but I’m also a novel lover and kind of snide. I wanted to talk seriously and hopefully helpfully about writing, but also be goofy about the classics and pretend to interview Salman Rushdie. When I realized I wanted the blog to be like the meeting rug in my classroom, a place where I hold forth, but everyone can comment and be welcome, it flowed from there. Now I keep going because people are (gasp!) reading it. Also, I am addicted to the internet.

twoofakindcoverCC: What goals do you have for your writing? How would you define your “life’s work”?
JR: Wow. That second question is hard for me because I always thought teaching was my life’s work and I’m not sure it still isn’t. I guess I hope my books tell kids, “Yeah, I know it’s hard. But you’re not alone and you know what? It’s gonna be okay.” And I want to make people laugh those laughs where you smile for a while afterwards. That’s the most important thing.

CC: How has motherhood changed you creatively?
JR: I’m more scatterbrained. I’m also more efficient. That’s a paradox I think only a parent can understand. My books are shorter, because I read to my own kids and I know bedtime is long enough already. I have a broader understanding of human emotions, which is very good for writing. But I’m also exhausted and frazzled and that’s bad. In the morning, I wrestle two kids into snowpants, hats, gloves, boots, coats and carseats, grab two lunches, homework, break up three arguments, find the library book, scream, “Whatareyoudoingupthereyou’resupposedtobebrushingyourteeth?!” and “Noyoucan’twearyourfairywingstoschoolputdownyourbrother’sorangejuice!” and get everyone off to where they need to be and then, heart racing, face frozen in a scowl, and every muscle tense, I sit down and tell myself, “WRITE! BE CREATIVE! You have ten minutes. GO! AAAH!”

officeCC: Where do you do your creative work?
JR: Hee hee. Here is a photo of my office from the summer. It’s even worse now, but I’m working on it, I swear. Meanwhile, I write on the sofa and at my local coffee shop a lot.

CC: Do you have a schedule for writing? Did the pressure of writing under a book contract change your time management strategies?
JR: I DO have a schedule for my writing. I make schedules for my writing all the time. Then I lose them or blow them off or one of the kids barfs and, well, you know. Sigh. Lately, I have been trying a timer: I sit down and write until it goes off. It works for me, this forced discipline. I’m a fast writer, if I’m focused, which helps. My books were all contracted as finished manuscripts, so I haven’t had contract deadline pressure. In fact, having the first book contract was very freeing for me in terms of feeling like “Hey! I’m a writer. I deserve time to write.” So even though I don’t keep a schedule, I respect my need to write and my need for time to do so.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
JR: Balance, or more specifically, my neurosis over the lack of it. Because there IS no balance, I think. My work is clearly much better when I am 100% focused on it and my family is palpably happier when I take a week off writing. So I struggle with the constant feeling of not giving things/people that are important to me everything they deserve.

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
JR: People assume I’m inspired by my own children, but really it’s my students. This is good, because at some point, my daughter is not going to think it’s so cool that her mom writes all these books about little girls who can’t make friends. I’m inspired by the difficulties my students have socially. Also, coffee helps.

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?
JR: Ack. This is hard. I read a lot of writer blogs, but I also like to read blogs by people whose lives are totally different from mine. I’m going to go with the top five that make me smile and spend the rest of the week worrying I hurt someone’s feelings.

  1. Yield and Overcome has musings, poetry, and laughs from a writer, father of four, and recently rediscovered good friend.
  2. Bookie Woogie is new to me. It’s a father and his children reviewing books and they are funny and honest and charming.
  3. Bossy cracks me up.
  4. Elise Murphy (who’s in my writer support group Rock Sugar Beets) blogs about writing and life on the farm. Math for Writers is my favorite post of Elise’s.
  5. Picture books get little respect in the writing world, but Boni Ashburn writes all about them at Life on the Bookshelf. Her own book, Hush Little Dragon, is fabulous.

new_girl_jacketCC: What is your greatest indulgence?
JR: Books. I love them. Our shelves are overflowing and sagging and I love running my fingers across the titles and sighing happily. My friend, Erika Mijlin, wrote Feldman and the Infinite, a play about a guy who stole 15,000 books from the New York public library. He had books in the bathtub. I’m not there yet, but it doesn’t sound so bad.

Also, I never drank caffeine until my son was born. Now I am addicted to overpriced foamy coffee and soy milk drinks in big ceramic mugs.

CC: What are you reading right now?
JR: I just started City of Thieves, by David Benioff. I’m also in the middle of Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiesson, which is lovely, but as dense and murky as its Florida Everglades setting, so I take little breaks from it to read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which I recommend to everyone ages 9 to 100.

CC: What advice would you offer to other mothers struggling to find the time and means to be more creative?
JR: Two thoughts, one internal, one practical. First, make sure you are not the one sabotaging yourself. Make sure that if something is important to you, it’s not last on your to do list. Put it first, and then believe that you deserve that time and that your family/your day job/the world will keep spinning if you disappear for 30 minutes.

Secondly, one of my new year’s resolutions this year was to do something every day to make the next day easier on myself. It’s worked out really well; before I relax for the night, I do one thing on my to do list for the next day. Then, the next day, I’m all, “Hey! I already did that! Look at all this extra time I have!”

CC: Wonderful, Jacqui — thank you!

Jan 29

123 Comments

Open Call to Creative Action: February Finish-a-thon!

Need a little kick in the pants in order to move your creative project a few notches higher on the to-do list?

Cathy Coley writes: “In my blog post of Tuesday, January 27, 2009, a challenge was proffered by Liz Hum, a Creative Construction contributor. So much for whining about deadlock, writer’s block, not being able to finish, or even getting a project off the ground. The writers here have challenged each other to a project duel of sorts for the month of February. We are two days from the beginning of the shortest month of the year, so let’s get busy! This is hopefully a variation of nanowhatchacallit for November.”

Fabulous idea, ladies. And everyone can participate, not just writers. If you would like to join us, please post a comment to this blog post. Tell us what you’re going to finish in February. Maybe it’s your novel, or maybe it’s a short story, 10 poems, 5 prints in the dark room, 8 canvases, 48 pinch pots, 15 pairs of earrings, or whatever you’d like to quantify. You might also identify what your primary work opportunities will be: daytime while kids are at school; during baby’s naptime; at night when everyone is in bed; early in the morning when everyone is in bed; your lunch hour at the office; three hours at the coffee shop on Sunday afternoons; etc.

Before submitting your comment, check off the box below the comment field, which reads “Notify me of follow-up comments via email.” That way you’ll stay in the loop on everyone’s progress and we can keep in touch as the month progresses.

Firing gun goes off on February 1, 2009! Get ready, get set…..

Jan 29

5 Comments

Georgia: I am Mother and writer…hear me roar

When my four-and-a-half-year-old son was a newborn, I remember my best friend asking me how I felt being a new mom. She asked if I thought it would interfere in my career. I think she was trying to find out if I was having postpartum depression.

I told her that having my beautiful son made me want to be the best person I could be and I had to pursue my dreams so he would learn to pursue his. I spoke the truth and I feel the same way now. But the difficulty often lies between the theoretical and the practical.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was in junior high. For my seventh grade English class, I wrote a dramatic tale about two lost children trying to find their way home. They meet many different people and animals along the way. My teacher even said I should try to get it published. I never did send it out but I knew then that writing was my passion.

In college I studied sociology and child development instead of English or journalism. I still wrote, filling up many tattered notebooks. But I just didn’t have the confidence to show other people my stories. Writing was the one thing I wanted to do and if I failed at that where would I be? So I just wouldn’t try…great logic I know.

By lucky circumstance, I got a job at a daily newspaper as a news assistant. I thought that I would just be writing calendar listings and sorting mail. One day the religion reporter said, “Georgia, will you cover this story for me.” And that was it. Soon I was writing almost 100% of the time. I started to pitch my own stories, even series of stories. I wrote a weekly entertainment column. I was a writer. I may not have been getting paid much and my title wasn’t “reporter.” But I was really a writer.

After working at the paper for a year I moved to Colorado with my then fiancé. Within a year I was married and pregnant. I got an office job at the local hospital. My own lack of self-confidence kept me from looking for a writing job. I guess that is why my friend asked me those questions.

I now live in a suburb of Chicago and I have found my way back to writing. I was a staff writer for a weekly newspaper based in the South Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, where President Obama lived before moving to Washington. I have even co-authored a book, it happens to only be printed in Japan…but hey it is a book. I decided to quit the newspaper job because it required being away from home many nights and weekends. I’m now trying to make a go of freelance writing.

Motherhood, I guess it’s about trying to be that “best person” while still having time to pick your son up after a fall, or taking time to play in the snow or watch another episode of Spiderman. The dirty laundry often trumps sending out brilliantly worded query letters, and it is near impossible to fit in that workout at the gym.

But hey, at least I can say with confidence now I’m a writer.

Jan 27

24 Comments

Cathy: Facing things

I’ve really appreciated being a part of this community. I’ve gained confidence in areas I neglected for a long time. I got back in touch with my own creativity in a variety of ways, the biggest of which was returning to a long ago manuscript that I had back-burnered along with many other projects. I’m great at starting things.

However, I think I’m at a point where I’ve hit a freeze. I wasn’t sure why for quite some time, but I think I finally figured it out. I’m near the end. I’m not great at finishing things. I don’t really understand why I have this historic block on finishing things, but I do. I’ve worked in education for many years, but without a degree in it. I started my MEd, but barely, many years ago now. K was a toddler, now he’s a teen. I can say this or that got in the way, but then I think about writing papers in college, or even my thesis, or art projects, or that silly modeling stint I wasted 600 bucks getting together a portfolio then dropped just as suddenly. And I realize, I really have an issue with sticking it out to the end. I rarely stay in one employ for more than a few years at a time, even if I’ve stayed in the same field. I seem to keep starting over.

Now, I’m at the end of my novel, and I still have some research, etc to do for the middle, but I’m really at the point where I’m tying up the loose ends, and I’ve hit a wall. A big wall made of concrete with a tangle of rebar throughout. I have all the advice I can give to anyone else, however, all my advice isn’t doing a darn bit of good for me. I keep hearing myself repeat that I know where I’m going, I know how to get there, but the writing just isn’t happening.

I don’t think pushing my self-imposed deadline out a little farther is going to help me. That just tells me, I still am not writing whether I give myself another couple of weeks or a month to do it. I’m. Not. Writing. The. Manuscript. Now. I wasn’t writing it yesterday. Or, well, you get the idea.

I really hope as in 12 step groups, that the first step toward solving a problem is admitting I have one. OK, I’ve covered that, now where’s my 12 step group for writers who can’t finish?

Hi, my name is Cathy…

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