Idea what I will do when the children are gone and I'm allowed to be a The way they involve me in the community and drag me out into the lightĪnd force me to engage with people - this is a good thing. It's a struggle, like it is for all moms who write, and in a The front of my brain, and let the children eat more takeout, and run aīit wild. Like during Nanowrimo, when I allow myself to bring the novel around to Sometimes I have gone away from theĬhildren entirely, taking to the mountains or beach with Joshilyn Then I will draft thousands of words at a time,Īnd lose a few days to my novel. Thinking about it in the car, before sleeping, while reading other books Requires a level of compartmentalizing that I'm sometimes unable toĪchieve for weeks at a time. Creating the mental space that it takes to write I am a homeschooling mom, so I don't have much time

Myself in this completely new way, through the lens of motherhood, andįinding everything that I'd previously liked about myself was now aĪ binge writer. Wanted to write about this sickening self doubt that I felt, looking at I imagined myself trying to talk to a child, and it coming It struck me as impossibly wise and insightful, something that I could Princess metaphor to explain to girls how to be polite.

How little ladies of the realm comport themselves!' Looking back, it's aĬute thing to say, but not so shatteringly brilliant - just using a I remember a friend withĭaughters explaining how she'd told her misbehaving girls, 'This is not Perfectly cook fish, organizing gardens, making sound parentingĭecisions, folding diapers into origami. Seemed like all my contemporaries were gliding along, knowing how to The only person who ever had thoughts like this, but at the time it To put it simply, Iĭidn't think I was good enough to be a mother. Uterus would be permanently scarred by my failings. With fear that I was too weird, too self-absorbed, too unskilled to haveĪ child, and that whatever baby had the bad luck to be born of my Novel I had just gotten pregnant with my first child.

Shine shine shine by lydia netzer