Archive for the 'mother writer' Category

Calming the Squirrel in the Cage: The Magic of Saying No

Published on April 11, 2012 in mother writer and writing. 1 Comment

Note: I posted this at www.motherwritermentor.com two weeks ago, so it’s dated–I’ve already been to Jamaica and am now back. But I think the essence of the message is timeless and thought I’d post it here for my readers that come here and don’t go to the other website. Jessica

Last Saturday, I lay awake until 3 in the morning, my mind whirling with all that I needed to do and all that was preventing me from getting it done. Some of this was writing related but most of it was not, unfortunately. When I cross one thing off the list of things to do, another thing is added. There is no “Wow, I’m done” moment these days, only the endless list. And most of what I need to do prevents me from writing.

Of course I realize the problem. I can’t say no. I get asked to do a lot of things—this author event, or that writerly thing there, or something else. All of them are good things to do. Some of them even help pay the bills, though actually that is rare. People expect artists of all kinds to do a lot of free events—to give back to the community. (I’ve been giving a lot back to the community these days and to be perfectly honest, it’s made it hard to pay the bills!)

The real problem is that all of these good things to do prevent me from doing the most important things—namely, spending time with my son and writing my next book.

By the time you read this, I will be taking the first real vacation I’ve had as an adult. I’ve travelled a lot but it’s always been for things—business trips, to attend a conference, to do research, to go to a wedding. And sure, I’ve packed a lot of tourist stuff into those trips, but I’ve also always taken along my laptop and worked in every spare moment. This trip, I’m leaving my computer home (*gasp*). And one of the things I’m going to do as I lie there on the beach in the sun drinking beer is to let some of the dross fall away. I’m going to find the courage to come back and say no to some people.

No, I can’t help you write your novel (though I would love to) because I need to write mine.

No, I can’t come to your daughter’s classroom (for free) (though I really would love to) because I need to grade my student’s papers.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

No.

No.

No.

I can already feel the stress lifting.  

Of course, I will say yes to a lot of things too. Yes. Yes yes yes! I am a big believer in Carl Sandburg’s “The People Who Say Yes,” that when you say yes, more opportunities follow, and when you say no, doors close.

But sometimes, you need doors to close. Sometimes, there are too many open doors and  you simply can’t go through all of them.

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Juggling a Kid on a Hip at a Snooty Literary Conference and thank God for good friends and for family

Published on March 5, 2012 in mother writer, women and writing. 4 Comments

This past weekend, I went to AWP in Chicago. I took my 17-month-old son with me. He amused and, perhaps, annoyed people on the plane, on the train, and in taxis with his insistent “HI!” and “BYE!” repeated many times over. He likes to look over the back of the airplane seat and blow bubbles at the people sitting behind us. In airports, he insists on walking by himself (the stroller is at least useful for wheeling around the luggage, diaper bag, and jackets) and he doesn’t want to hold my hand, either, so this trip, I made him wear a little doggy backpack with a tail that functioned as a leash. He doesn’t want to sit around in the hotel coffee shop talking to my friends, certainly won’t let me sit through any panels, and would rather ride up and down the escalators at the hotel where the conference was held. During lunch, he amused some of the staid and academic writers by discovering the joys of ice. (Actually my friend Denise popped an icecube in his mouth and I about had a heart attack wondering if he could choke on it before I decided to relax.) He banged the table and smiled winningly at the man sitting across from us as icy water dribbled down his chin and pooled all over the table in front of him.

Starting at 3 months, my son has gone with me all over the country to library and literary conferences. I’ve felt like it was important not to let the fact that I was the mother of  a baby interfere with my professional writing career. And if anybody faults me for bringing a baby along, I thought, screw ‘em. Most people love babies so it worked out just fine while he was very young, and I took care not to let him be fussy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The screw ‘em thought didn’t keep me from being very conscious not to let him interfere with other people’s ability to work or to listen or to enjoy what they had come for.

Nevertheless, starting at 7 months, it was clear that although I still needed to bring him with me on trips, I needed childcare while I was doing my writerly things. So the real reason it’s worked is because there are some really good people in my life.  My in-laws drove to Tucson to watch Nesta for me when he was five months old. In New York, my husband’s cousin watched my son and her baby in my hotel room while I signed books at the BEA. In New Orleans, my good friend Holly drove down from Alabama and took Nesta all over the French Quarter or swimming while I signed books and gave a short talk at a breakfast that my publishers had arranged for me. At a booksigning in Austin, a friend Lindsey held him for me while he slept. At a booksigning in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, a friend Jason took him outside into the sweltering Louisiana night while I read and talked and chatted with the people who came. Jason sang him to sleep until the mosquitoes came out. My mother flew out to Chicago for an entire week of babysitting while I sat on panels, gave talks, and signed books. And this past week in Chicago, my friend Ann watched Nesta while I read on a panel. No, I didn’t go to any other panels this particular trip but I was grateful for the time I was given. It was enough.

I’m probably forgetting somebody somewhere who helped me, but I certainly wouldn’t want to forget mentioning how fabulous my publishers have been about letting me bring my son along to all my publicity events. (Remember this, moms, when arranging your book deals! How friendly is your publisher to the fact that you aren’t a single entity but there are some small people literally attached to your hip?)

Being a writer seems like such a solitary act. We sit in front of the computer alone. We work with words and characters and plots and rhyme and language and metaphor and symbol all alone. We think and we walk and we observe and we bumble our way through the tensions of relationships and people and our mixed desires and our fears and, for the most part, as writers, we do it alone.

Except we aren’t alone and we should never forget that.

The truth is–and I think this is true for all writers, not just writing moms–I wouldn’t be able to write at all if it weren’t for the good support system I have, starting with the most important person of all, my husband, but then continuting to all the people who, in big and small ways, do the necessary things to make it all possible. That includes my agent and editors and publicists. But it also really really really includes my friends and family. Most of my support system isn’t local. It would be so nice to be able to pop on over to my mom’s and leave Nesta for the day so I could write without paying for childcare. But the good part of that support system not being local has come in handy this past year when I travelled all over the country and people came to my rescue.

A big Texas-sized thank you to all the many people who have supported me and my writing, not just since my son was born but for the last fifteen years. I couldn’t do it without you.

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Do A Little Bit Of Everything Every Day

Published on January 7, 2012 in mother writer and writing. 7 Comments

Before I became a mother, I had carved out a pretty cushy writing life for myself. I teach college writing classes online and I do freelance writing and editorial work, so my job was extremely flexible. In the morning when I woke up, I made myself some coffee and sat down to write for four or five hours. Then I would go for a walk or the gym, take a shower, and spend the afternoon grading papers or doing other bill-paying work. If the morning’s writing session had gone particularly well and I didn’t have a lot of pressing “other” work, I might spend the afternoon writing as well. I took weekends “off” but usually spent a couple of hours on the weekend writing anyway.

Writing-wise, I got a lot done. And I could justify the small amount of money the writing actually brought to the household budget because I was getting published and was becoming recognized as a young adult writer of some talent. Costs were minimal and I brought in enough money through teaching and editorial work to make up for what I wasn’t bringing in through writing.

Enter the birth of my son 15 months ago and I was ushered into an entirely different reality. When I wake up in the morning, I still make coffee–but now I hang out with the baby while he plays. I work hard to check my email and get a shower before his morning nap so that I can hit the ground running as soon as his head hits the pillow. I’m still juggling the bill-paying work with my writing career, and it seems like that money doesn’t stretch as far as it did before, so I’m always drumming up new ways to make money, which eats into the writing time even more. I do have a babysitter, but I need her to get the bill-paying work done, especially since my son is a poor sleeper and rarely takes naps longer than an hour. (Hour long naps happen only when I’m lucky!)

I’ve lost the luxury of time, something any mother knows all about.

So I’ve been learning to write in increments. The best advice I’ve received all year came from another writing mother who also juggles a demanding full-time faculty position at a community college. Her kids are older but she knows what writing moms deal with. I was making an appearance at a literary festival and fielding audience questions and her question was this: “How do you balance it all?” I laughed and said, “Not very well!” Afterward, she came over and told me that the year before, she’d started her new job and was wondering how she would keep writing and still keep up with her workload. She’d noticed–as I’ve noticed–that many of the other full-time English faculty “used to write.” She didn’t want her writing to be a casulty of the job. So she asked another faculty member with a strong publishing record in poetry how he managed.

And this is what he told her: “Do a little bit of everything every day.” Do a little bit of grading…do a little bit of writing…do a little bit of committee work…

Her advice hit me like a ton of bricks. My strategy up to that point had been to clear my plate of everything else and then try to get a morning to write. I was always frustrated, though, because I’d get my grading done (it had to get done, after all) and I’d get the editorial work done (I was on deadline, after all) but when I sat down to write, inevitably, that would be the morning when my son wouldn’t take a nap. Or he’d be sick. Or I’d sit at the computer with nothing to write because I wasn’t in the mode for it. I’d never had that problem before–the writing always flowed. And it always flowed because I sat down every day and what I was working on was always in the back of my mind. Take a week or two weeks off and then try to write for several hours–uh-uh, wasn’t happening. The juices take a while to flow and you have to keep them flowing. So writing just a little bit every day makes total sense. If all you have is 15 minutes, do it. If you’re lucky enough to have an hour, take it.

That advice isn’t just for writing, by the way. If you’re anything like me, you battle daily with Creep and Clutter. I’m learning to attack one thing every day. That means I’m not trying to keep everything bright and shiny, but if I can clean one drawer in 15 minutes, at least that one drawer is better. I’m hoping that this will help me get and stay organized over all.

And as for the writing, it’s happening. It’s just a whole lot slower than it used to be….

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Sleepless Nights and the Life of an Artist

Published on December 15, 2011 in mother writer and writing. 2 Comments

14 months ago, I became a mother, and the sleepless nights began. Every other baby I know has gone on to sleep through the night, but not my son. He gets up at least 3 or 4 times a night, and frequently gets up 5 or 6 or even 7 or 8 times a night. He wakes screaming and it can take more than an hour for him to go back to sleep. (I learned the hard way that if you leave him in the crib, he’ll just keep crying.) And sometimes he’ll just be awake–wide-awake–for a long time, like last night, when he was up for close to two hours.

I’m not writing to complain. Though I’ve noticed the perpetually dark circles under my eyes, and though some mornings I have to drag myself out of bed, and though some nights I get super mad at him (like last night, where I finally said, in a firm, almost cruel voice, ”Play time is over, my friend,”), I’ve learned to deal.

In fact, recently, I decided to use that time to write. Obviously, I can’t write write. But I can write in my head. I can think about my current novel-in-progress and work out plot problems. Or think about my dreams (which are dramatic and spell-binding and memorable, especially since they get interrupted in media res) and how they could translate into a story. I’ve never been the type of writer who would drag myself out of bed at 3 a.m. to write because I had to get an idea down, but now I’m dragged out of bed most nights at 3 a.m. so at least I can think about things, and then take notes come morning.

I’ll let you know if it works.

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Identity, Babies, and Writing

Published on August 18, 2011 in Books & News, Family, mother writer, parenthood, women and writing. 0 Comments

Ever since I became a mother, I’ve been referring to myself in the third person. “Mommy loves you,” I tell Nesta, or “You can’t bite Mommy!” even as I think, How weird. It’s like “I” don’t exist. Only “mommy” exists. And who the hell is she?

There is a certain amount of truth to the thought that “I” ceased to exist when “Mommy” came into being. Your identity collapses for your child into one thing, and that happens a little bit for yourself as well, at least for awhile. Humans spend time with the things, events, people, and activities that define them, that make up their identity, and a new mother spends more time with her child than she does anything else. Or at least, this new mother does. (Here I go again, referring to myself in the third person.) In the past 10 1/2 months since my son was born, I’ve probably spent an average of twelve to thirteen hours a day with him. This is more time than I think I’ve spent with anybody else, ever, except my own mother. Naturally, my identity at the moment reeks of motherhood, is saturated with the daily grind of it, soaked in those juices.

Who am I now? How did I get here? And will I ever be able to get my creative life back?

My blog and my writing life have suffered the most. Bill-paying work always gets done because it has to. The writing that does get done is mostly because of deadlines and public appearances, not because it brings in a lot of money. It’s been hard to work on my next book. I feel a little lost, swimming around in this sea of nursing, diapers, and lack of sleep. Though I didn’t exactly get what many people might refer to as “mommy brain,” I have discovered that I have very little patience for some things that absorbed me in the past, and my conversation is dominated by parenting talk, a trend I hope will pass as my baby grows and I have more freedom to become the “old” Jessica again. Or, not exactly the “old” Jessica, but a new (and certainly improved) Jessica.  

I am making a commitment to try blogging here again regularly, that is, once a week. So I hope you’ll drop by and spend some time with me as I muddle my way through this new period where my identity as wife, mother, writer, teacher, and editor/publicist are being shuffled around and re-mixed. Not entirely sure what will come of the re-mix but I know it’ll be an interesting process. Thanks for being here for the ride!

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Working Moms in a Post-Feminist World

Published on March 2, 2011 in Children's, mother writer, parenthood, women and writing. 1 Comment

Because I am a new mother working at home with limited childcare, I have been thinking lately how I have no models for how to do this in a healthy and productive manner—healthy for my relationship with my 5-month-old son, productive for my work and my career.

 Growing up in the church, I knew very few married women who worked, period. Those who did were usually not professionals, and there was this vague sense that floated from and towards them that they had to work because their husbands didn’t make enough money. I might add that their children were not the best behaved on the block, which added to the sense that their situation was less than ideal. Among the professional women I knew, one was a physical therapist whose husband had lupus; I had the impression that, once again, she was in a situation where she needed to be the breadwinner because her husband could not and this is what made it acceptable.

 My mother is a writer, and she did write a weekly parenting column while I was growing up. But we didn’t rely on her income (I think it paid the princely sum of something like $25 a week), she was able to write her column on Thursday afternoons so she wasn’t trying to put in more than two or three hours of work a week, and her stay-at-home mom-ness contributed 100% to her ability to write the column.

 I grew up feeling rebellious—like I was a bad Christian girl—because I knew I didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom. I wanted a career, as a writer, and I wanted it to be a successful career—with multiple books published and magazine articles and long essays and lots of short stories. For a long time, I thought I wouldn’t have children because I wasn’t sure how I would manage both.

 Though I think there are more professional and non-professional women in the church who work these days than there were when I was growing up (it is hard, sometimes impossible, to make it on one income these days), I know some of those women feel judged. My sister-in-law, for example, mentioned a melt-down she had in church one day when a man pompously informed her that God expected her to stay at home with her children. I’ve known since I was a little girl that I was supposed to be a nurse, she told him. I feel called by God to be a nurse. And I am a very good mother. So just shut up.  

 But among all the women I know, I personally know exactly one other woman doing what I’m doing: work at home with limited childcare. (I have someone come in six hours a week to babysit. This lets me make business phone calls without interruption.) The limited childcare is due to two things: one, I don’t really want to put my baby in childcare; two, we can’t afford it anyway. The working is due to two things: one, I love my job(s) as writer, teacher, and editor/publicist; two, we need my income anyway.

 I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday and she mentioned that the feminist revolution betrayed us. “It told us that we could have it all,” she said. “But what that really means is that you have to have a career, and you have to put your children in daycare. There are very few jobs that allow you to work and have your children with you.”

 That is so true. I had the fortune to jump on the online teaching bandwagon early, which means I have more experience teaching online than just about any professor I ever meet. And it allowed me flexibility for my writing career long before my baby was born. Now that I’m a mother, my dean, thankfully, doesn’t care that I have a child at home while I work—as long as I am still an excellent teacher and do what I’m supposed to do in a timely fashion.

 I am lucky, too, that my publisher welcomes both me and my baby when I go to publicity events and book signings. I had Nesta lying in a stroller or I was holding him throughout the American Library Association’s mid-winter conference. As I talked to librarians outside of Cinco Puntos Press’s booth, I gently rocked him to keep him happy. And guess what? Those librarians love babies. He is my best marketing tool, hands down. But I know I’m lucky. Not all publishers would be so welcoming or so understanding.

 But it’s hard. I need to be putting in more hours than I currently am, especially writing. It is easy to be interrupted from grading papers or writing a press release. It is not so easy to revise my current novel when I’m interrupted so often.

 Still, I would like a few models of women who manage successfully to work at home and keep their child out of daycare. I know you guys are out there. Please share your stories, your tips, your best practices! And especially for those mother writers out there—I need to hear how you’ve done it, and how you’ve balanced the appropriate time with your children and the appropriate time doing work, and how you’ve learned to write while being interrupted.

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Quiet with baby

Published on February 19, 2011 in mother writer. 0 Comments

I never knew I was such a quiet person until I had a baby. Now that we’re alone together all day, I’ve started realizing how quiet the house is. If he’s hanging out in the swing or his chair beside me while I work, everything is still and peaceful. People are telling me this is a bad thing. The world I’m creating around my baby is too calm. Apparently, I need music going, noise, lots of chaos, not this peaceful little world that I live in. People scold me: “If you had another child…blah blah blah…”

Guilty,  I turn on music. Try to create a little noise. Forget about work! Forget about the way he smiles as he looks at me, for now his favorite person in the world, with peace and stillness all around us. Writing? Does it have to be a quiet business? Okay, no, I agree. I can do it with voices and life and color in the background.

He needs to know the real world, people say. And apparently, the real world is noise. Lots going on. Not this quiet companionship between mother and baby.

But isn’t this the real world? It’s the real world I live in. What’s wrong with peace and quiet, anyway?

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