Reading, writing, and just general housework.

Motherhood is an adventure. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to continue to live your life while simultaneously providing twenty-four hour care to a helpless infant. Truly a mind-boggling brain-teaser. However, I’ve learned a few things over the past two months about prioritization, multi-tasking, and efficiency.

Reading – It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that I could nurse while reading. Audiobooks may also be an option, albeit one I haven’t utilized yet.

Writing – Also something I can do while nursing or holding a baby, somewhat. A notebook for new stories, or my e-reader for editing make it possible, though somewhat tricky. The hardest part is balancing the notebook on the arm of the chair.

Housework and other activities – Two words: BABY SWING! Truly, my productivity has skyrocketed since acquiring this indispensible piece of baby furniture. It makes everyone happy.

Of course in another few months I’ll have to figure out a completely new system as his routines change and he goes through different developmental stages.

My baby arrived!

Shortly after my last post, I went into labor. After a (relatively) short and easy labor, my son made his first appearance in the world. He’s healthy, if smallish, utterly adorable, and definitely a bit precocious in the development department. He’s also one of the most calm babies ever, which is nice for a first-time mother. He is now almost three weeks old, and I’m just starting to figure out my routine again. (As evidenced by the fact that I began writing this post two and a half weeks ago).

So far, motherhood has been like nothing I’ve experienced before. It’s terrifying. Exhausting. Frustrating. It’s also been completely special and wonderful in a weird way.
continue reading "Motherhood"

I really hate doing it…

I’m currently waiting on two relatively major events. First, my due date is rapidly approaching (about 11 days) so I am at the stage of pregnancy where labor could literally begin at any moment.

*Pauses hopefully waiting for a contraction to start….*

*Sigh*

Anyway, the second event is I am still waiting to hear back about the AW Spec Fic Anthology and my submitted story. My story made it through the first round of rejections, and the rest of us are now waiting on the edge of our chairs to find out who made it into the final volume and who didn’t. Again, we could literally hear any day at this point.

*Checks email in-box for millionth time.*
continue reading "Waiting"

Stories!

Today I sent out my first story submission in well over a year. A few weeks ago I saw the announcement of the Absolute Write Speculative Fiction Anthology over on the AW Forums, and a day or two later had a story idea to go with it. I wrote, edited and submitted it faster than I’ve ever written anything else. Now it’s just about the waiting. And that’s scary. If I was a nail-chewer, I’d be down to the second knuckle already. As it is, I think I’ll probably just give up on sleeping instead.

On the other hand, it’s also terribly exciting. I feel better about myself, both in general and as a writer than I have in weeks, or even months. I finished something, and I had a lot of fun doing it too! Even if the story doesn’t make it into the AW Anthology, that’s a big accomplishment. I will be utterly thrilled if my first story published for pay is from AW because that site has become my favorite internet hang-out and a source of some very good friends. But I won’t be heart-broken if I get a rejection from them either, since there are always other places to send stories.

Most importantly, this has me excited to be writing again, and already laying plans for polishing other completed stories and starting new ones. It may even lead me back to finishing a novel, polishing it, and sending it out.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll sit over here and work out how to train my dog to monitor my email while I sleep.

Some additional thoughts on Kristin Maschka’s book about motherhood.

I don’t normally read self-help type books, or advice books, or indeed generally any sort of non-fiction other than in very narrow fields such as Egyptology and Classical Studies. So, when my mother gave me a book on motherhood that she’d found in a bargain-bin, I sort of shrugged and smiled internally, and figured I would never finish reading it. But in order to not appear ungrateful, I sat down and began to read the first few pages of Mashka’s book This Is Not How I Thought it Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to get the Lives we Want Today. The tone of Mashka’s prose is conversational, rather like a chat with a friend over coffee, but at the same time she raises important questions about motherhood, fatherhood and social pressures.
continue reading "“This Is Not How I Thought it Would Be”"

I’m embarrassed to share sometimes.

Generally speaking, I’m never shy about sharing what I’ve written with anyone and everyone. I’m a writer, and I like to have people read what I write. I’m not even afraid to share first drafts, so long as the people I’m sharing with understand that it is not (yet) my best work. Sometimes, however, I am embarrassed about something I’ve written. These bits of embarrassing writing are not stories that I consider terrible (those can be made better, after all) or eviscerated first drafts still in need of a tune-up.

Dear Reader, I’m ashamed of my poetry and songs. I’m not a poet. I don’t write poetry. That just isn’t me. Except of course, when it the urge comes upon me, and I find myself jotting down a verse or six in my Magic Writer Notebook(tm). Afterwards, I’m usually fairly happy with the result, despite it never being particularly technically correct. Nevertheless, I’m almost always afraid to share it afterwards.
continue reading "Shy Writer"