Writing and Motherhood

Sarah Reinhard, who is both a friend and a writer I admire, recently invited me to ponder several questions about writing and motherhood and to ramble share my insight with her readers over at her lovely (and recently revamped) blog Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering. My hope is that my pondering is saving her from doing some of her own pondering (which she does so well) and to ease her reentry back into her work at her parish.

Today I explore the intersection of my writing and mothering lives. This is a timely question because right now being a good or just plain functional mom means I have very little time to write. Take this weekend. I had all these plans to sit down and piece together prose. There were so many embryonic thoughts floating around in my mind that I wanted to develop. But then the baby got the sniffles. Then I started feeling lousy. Taking care of the baby and myself moved to the top of my to-do list, and all those ideas were shelved somewhere in my brain. Not to mention, when I do actually have a small pocket of time to devote to writing, I’ve recently been cursed with a bad case of writer’s block and usually end up staring at the screen or the blank page of a journal trying to force the words to come out. Yet, I’ve found that words, like babies, come best in God’s time.

Ah, but enough of this. Now won’t you stop by Sarah’s place? She’s the perfect hostess, and I’m thrilled (not to mention humbled) to be over there this week.