Mothers Writing in a Pandemic
I have two grown daughters who are out in the world and living their own lives. Well, one of them is currently living her life back at home, teaching 7th grade from my office because she could not do that work from the small room she rents in San Francisco… But the point still stands: My kids are grown up. And this is a fact I am enormously grateful for right now.
Adult children have to deal with sacrifice and compromise and heartbreak during the pandemic just like everyone else. My older daughter canceled her wedding and moved it into 2021 and my younger daughter (the one with the small apartment) is having to navigate difficult roommate dramas and figure out how to reframe her curriculum to teach online. But I have not had to entertain and educate small children who can’t leave the house; or tip-toe around tween-age children who may or may not want to be in the same room with me; or steal time away from a 24–7 parenting job to do my own thinking and my own work.
And I am so glad.
My grown children are some of my favorite people in the world. I loved raising them and getting to know them, and I love being adults with them, but I did not love being a mother of very small children. I thought it was the hardest thing I have ever done. It is so easy to lose yourself. It is so easy to feel so completely alone. There are days when you believe you will never have 5 minutes of peace. It is relentless and exhausting, and the stakes are so high. I deeply love my experience of being a mother, but those early years? They’re brutal.
When I think about parents who DO have to entertain and educate and spend 24/7 caring for children on their own within the confines of their homes during this pandemic, let alone try to keep their creative work going, I think — wow. That is just a LOT to shoulder.
I have writers and book coaching students who are mothers who ask me how to manage this time, and how to navigate their work when their work might only be done in small moments of stolen time, when the house is noisy and loud, and the demands relentless.
I can share what I did — like the time I finished writing a book while my kids played in the bathtub and I sat on the floor trying to concentrate and not get wet. Or the time I used to cheat in reading them bedtime stories and skip ahead, so I could get to my own writing before I fell asleep. Or the way I somewhat obsessively trained my kids to read and spend time alone drawing or writing or thinking so that I could spend time alone writing or thinking. (I wrote a book about that effort.)
And I can share what other parents I know do — like how middle-grade writer Mae Respecio talks about writing her book in 5-minute bursts because that was all she sometimes had. Or how Carla Naumburg asks her kids to beta read her middle-grade books as a way of making them part of it.
But all the stories and tips and tricks in the world don’t really make it better.
What makes it better is the comfort and consolation and understanding of others who are in it RIGHT NOW TOO.
One of Author Accelerator’s certified book coaches, Georgina Green, decided to make a space for other moms trying to write through the pandemic. It’s called Calliope’s Writers and you can check it out HERE. I think it’s a beautiful idea, and Georgina is the perfect person to run it.
As a book coach, she specializes in helping writers of women’s fiction, domestic suspense, and literary fiction plan and write their first draft or gain the perspective they need to revise. She is so dedicated to her craft and so committed to being in the writer’s corner — and this is part of the reason she will be good at leading this community. About her book coaching training, she writes:
“Just as outside observers don’t often see the work that goes into writing a book, no one can know the level of work it has taken to get to a place where I can help writers as a book coach. It has taken training, thought, and self-reflection.
A large part of what has enabled me to work with writers is the training I’ve undertaken with Author Accelerator. For me, being an Author Accelerator certified coach is akin to the professional supervision that certified life coaches and therapists undergo in their fields. It helps me to keep showing up in the way that writers need me to. With an array of strategies and tools; with curiosity; with my ego and desire to ‘fix things’ in check; with boundaries and practices that empower my clients; with industry knowledge; and with a network of colleagues I can draw on for support and second opinions.”
As for why she decided to start this community of writing moms now?
“This is a crisis, an emergency. But it is also oh so familiar to me that the first thing to go in life, just generally, is the solitude and deep work of mothers. Asked to bend to the point of breaking to hold normal life or something like it together for everyone else. This crisis lit a fire under me to support mothers to write, both right now, and when ‘normal’ life returns. Because this is not sustainable, whether our creative lives are on hold for a few months, years or until our kids are in school.”
Writer Sara Bates, who is working with Author Accelerator book coach KC Karr on her first novel — a YA rom-com — has just joined George’s brand-new community. She writes:
“George and I connected via the [Author Accelerator] Membership Circle. I was ranting and raving in essays I was publishing on Medium (https://medium.com/@bates.sara.a) about trying to write with my little kids at home during the pandemic. How all the creative time I had to wait for was suddenly stripped away when school was shut down (not only for the school year, but apparently for summer camp, too). George reached out to me in response to my essays, and we had a chat about writing amidst motherhood. I’m excited to join Calliope Writers so that I may safely connect with other women during this unique season of life.”
I’m so happy to share Georgina’s website and her invitation to other mothers to join. Please pass this along to any writer moms you know who might need it.
Does book coaching sound like something you might enjoy? Come to my webinar TODAY to hear more about it. I’ll give a brief presentation and answer questions. Sign up even if you can make it — we’ll send a recording.
Want to hire a book coach? We have been matching writers with coaches all through this shut-down and we are ready and waiting to match you, too! Click HERE for more information.
