Becoming a Mom Changed My Writing Goals
It's finally time to talk about my latest work in progress...
I’ve wanted to be a writer since high school, when I started reading Meg Cabot books and writing fan fiction before I even knew that term. Writing novels then became my ultimate dream. I had this big idea that I hoped to someday get traditionally published, dragging it with me through college and an MFA program.
But I had such a hard time writing the middle of it. I knew how I wanted it to begin and how I wanted it to end, but getting from point A to point B felt daunting. I ended up turning it into a novella for my final MFA project, but I knew it wasn’t good enough to be published.
After putting that project down I started on a new one that seemed more promising, but I always found excuses not to write it. It wasn’t until recently that I thought about letting go of that particular dream.
Because I think the length of novels has always scared me, if I’m honest. And the idea of cranking out 50k words for just one draft and then having to edit it over and over sounds like way too much work.
I’d never given much thought to writing anything other than novels. I dabbled in blogging on and off, tried out social media management, and even thought about publishing personal essays for a short period of time. But in the back of my mind I always thought I’d eventually write a novel, that I was meant to write a novel.
Then I gave birth to my baby girl and my whole world changed.
It still amazes me how someone so small can loom so large. She’s taken my heart over and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.
Between falling in love with my newborn daughter and swimming through the sea of postpartum depression, I lost a lot of my creative spark. But at about 18 months postpartum, I started to get some of it back.
That’s when I started this newsletter, as long time readers will know. I was also inspired to write a children’s book.
We read a lot in our house. My daughter just loves books. We get a new book a month from the Dolly Parton Foundation, which has been such a fun program to be a part of. I even tell my little girl that she gets those books from her “Aunt Dolly.”
But along with that, family members have passed down books from my own childhood. So I’ve had the exquisitely special experience of reading books to my daughter that were once read to me. Getting to be the parent reading the same words that I’d memorized as a kid is so surreal and so fun. It helped me remember that my first love - reading - began with children’s books.
That made me wonder if I could write one myself. And watching my daughter grow up with our dog inspired the story I’m now currently writing.
In just over a year I’ve completed 4 drafts and each one is better than the last. I’ve been following Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books which feels like a mini MFA in children’s writing in the best way. Even though I’m not nearly ready to go on submission with this book, I know that I’m closer to it with this one than any other project I’ve started. That feels so exciting.
Working on this newsletter and my book draft has brought a lot of joy and fulfillment to my life. They feel doable and worthwhile in a way that writing novels never really did. Maybe one day I’ll go back to that dream. A part of me wonders if I’ll move to early chapter books and middle grade when I eventually read those kinds of books with my daughter.
But I’m really happy with where I’m at now. I’m realizing that it’s okay for my dreams to change or evolve as I do. My world feels so much more open. I’m ready to see what’s out there for me. I still want to be a published author, just of a different kind of book than I’d originally expected.
Now feels like the right time to make that happen.
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