Dear Writer Mom:
I know your life right now is one constant interruption. Little people have demands, and they begin the moment they wake up in the morning until the last bedtime story is read. And even then there is the cajoling to lie down, to be still, no more glasses of water, you just used the bathroom there’s no way you have to go again. . . .
Your life is a marathon. You wake up every morning ready to sprint through the day (coffee is nonnegotiable). Maybe the baby will nap well. Maybe you’ll find an activity that’s exciting enough to entertain the preschooler for more than fifteen minutes. Maybe you won’t discover the school-aged children in the bathroom giving the dog’s fur a trim or the teenager after having given herself bangs in a fit of emotional angst.
But even on the good days the time is never fully yours. There is the cooking and the cleaning up of toys scattered from one end of the house to the other and the laundry and the preparing of snack after snack after snack and the taxi service you provide, shuttling your kids from one destination to the next.
But in the nooks and crannies of the day your mind slips to something else that brings you joy: words. So you think about your characters—what they are doing and saying in that very moment. They come alive in your mind. They speak to you and act out and you wish to God you could just sit down for fifteen minutes to get the words onto the page before they’re lost forever even though you know the moment you try someone will inevitably need your attention because you are Mom.
Yet something burns deep within you, demanding you tell your stories, and it must be something larger than yourself because it would be so much easier to tell the Muse to go away. Leave you in peace. Come back in eighteen years when the smoke has settled.
But it’s not that easy because you are Writer Mom, and while you live to put stories onto the page, you also live to love and care for your children, and this consumes your most productive hours of every day. It’s a monotony, sometimes, but they tell you this season won’t last forever. One day the house will be as quiet and empty and as clean as you always imagined it could be, and you will have as much time to think and write and plan and plot as needed.
For now, Writer Mom, keep setting your alarm an hour early. Your characters are ready for you long before everyone else has started their day. And if you write by candlelight, then know that your characters will wait up for you. And if you can only write one or two paragraphs in a single session, write knowing you are still an inspiration.
Do not compare your Writer Mom sprint with someone else’s Writer Mom sprint. Push away the thought that you could be doing more. You are enough. Your children need their Mom and the world needs your words.
You can be both Writer and Mom.
Besides, what is a more powerful example to her children than a mother working toward her own dreams and goals?
Show us the way, Writer Mom.
We see you.
