You Are Not Alone

Something important in maintaining your creativity as a mom, I think… being a part of a community that supports and encourages your creativity. One that holds you accountable for creating. One that can discuss with you the trials and tribulations of being creative, as well as the joys.

I don’t think you necessarily have to go back to art school or join a writing group or a crafting circle. I think even an online community can give you that push. Maybe it helps to have constraints on your creativity… as in write a novel in a month, or finish your painting by monday, or show the group what you have been crafting. As a mom, we put our needs last, a lot. But if we promise someone else that we will do something, maybe it’s easier for us to commit to those things.

I know I blow off my own personal goals to take care of things that affect other people. But what if someone else is watching what I produce creatively? What if they are depending upon it? What if they are keeping watch on my page count?

Somehow, I think it will help me stick to my goals.

I will tell you how this proceeds in a month, when I’ve finished my novel along with all the thousands of other people writing along with me on NaNoWriMo.org

See more progress on: write my book on creativity and motherhood

So I am going to do NaNoWriMo

Write a novel in a month! I’ve wanted to do it in past years, but the timing has always been off.
This year, though, I have a novel idea, an outline, a character list, a setting and so on. I started it months ago, and then stopped it, months ago. Now, though, I am really feeling the pressure of time. I mean, I’m having ANOTHER baby in 4 or 5 months. If I don’t kick myself into gear, when will be my next opportunity? It’s not only the only timing there is, it’s the perfect timing. Yes, it will be a struggle, but when wouldn’t writing a novel be a struggle?
The whole thing really scared me when I first started. I have no concept of numbers at the level of 50,000. I thought I would need to be writing full time to write a novel in 30 days. But when I figured out that wriing 50,000pp in 30days means writing 1,776 words a day—and then I checked my writing log from the brief time when I was writing in this book, I realized I was already writing about one thousand words a day, in about an hour.
I wasn’t pushing myself past one page or one hour, either. So if I do push myself—then why can’t I tack on another hour, another thousand pages? I can do this. I’ve done this.
And you know what? Even if I don’t write 50,000 words, I will still have written more than if I didn’t take on the challenge. I will be much farther on my way to my first draft.
So, onwards and upwards. Writing is really the fine art of applying butt to chair, anyway. Who said that? Should give them a medal.

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

Mothering the Mom

I had an idea about Mothering. Well, first off, why should being creative while being a mother be any different than being creative without kids, or as a man?

I think it’s because being creative at all means you have to tackle your demons—we all have them, but mothers have a certain set of demons in common, on top of their regular human being demons.

One issue is about taking care of others. Mothering. Raising children. We need to be mothers—and often, you’ll hear people saying that the children come first… so our identity as mothers is frequently considered the most important part of who we are.

Mothering isn’t just about hugs and kisses. We feed, we clean, we dress, we entertain, we educate, we praise, we punish, we set boundaries, we love. Every human being needs this. It’s hard to overcome lack of mothering—whoever one gets it from.

But I think we forget sometimes that we need mothering too. Not just the rewards and indulgences of unconditional love, but also the discipline, boundary setting, nourishing, and the daily preparing and maintenance that any mother gives those she is responsible for.

Who else is responsible for us? For our creative ambitions? For our art? We are.

What does that mean to our art? I think a lot, I’m still working on everything that means, but right now, I am definitely in the world of boundaries and accountability.

If I am to mother my creativity, my artist self, then I need to say, “no more tv, time to get to work, even if you are tired and would rather snack on chocolate and rot your brain.” I need to require more of myself than relaxing because I am so worn from mothering everyone else all day. I need to set myself some goals, and then, hold myself to them.

See more progress on: write my book on creativity and motherhood

Writing To Do Lists is on my To Do List

Planning my day is the first step in getting my productivity and creativity and, well, life back.

Organizing my mind so that I can see what I need to do. For me, that takes lists. Looking at my apartment, you would never guess that I was relatively organized—or maybe that I need organization to function, but I do.

There are so many thoughts going through my head that it is hard to grab ahold of one and make it come real. This is why I need lists. This is why I need to decide on priorities and on schedules. And I always know what I need to do when I do not have the time to do it.

When I am ready to do stuff, I can’t for the life of me remember what I wanted to do.

Brains are funny that way. They’re so amorphous and immediate—like brie flashes of life, but living is very concrete and set in steps… this to that to the other to the next step. I don’t know if that makes sense, it’s my amorphous brain trying to get across an idea I had for one, brief moment.

See more progress on: Plan my day

Start All Over Again

I haven’t written in so long. I am so out of it. Out of practice. Out of the mindset. Out of the story. Out of focus.

I am so lazy right now. My energy is drained. My time is occupied. I am FULL of excuses, though.

Just saw the writer Jennifer Egan on a talk show, talking about writing and how she never knows where her story is going. She lives in Brooklyn and has two kids. Makes me want to write again. Makes me want to be a writer again.

I am afraid to start all over again. Not “start all over again,” because I still have my ideas and my first chapter, but I am afraid to START—again.

Time to battle the demons. Time to commit to action. Time to pick up the sword (pen, keyboard, whatever) and attack.

Time to stop talking about.

I promise, after I post this, I will open up my novel file and just start writing—even typing at this point is acceptable—just to get the words flowing.

See more progress on: write and publish a novel

Gabriel playing in the Union Square Playground. 

This Weekend Was Family Time

We didn’t go out to eat or play softball or even the park. We didn’t even go out for a walk.

We stayed at home, cleaning, doing laundry, working on projects that have been neglected for the last two years.

The boy spent his time with us. Running around trying to get into things he’s not supposed to get into, tossing the ball around, chasing the kitty.

He also started dancing. It was adorable. We played music for him, Doo Wop, I think, and he held his arms out and twirled around the room, singing along. I kept wanting him to dance like his friends were—kind of bouncing on their knees, but he never got into that. If he danced, it was always more a bop of his head. Now I’m so glad that I didn’t try to train him to bounce, because he found his own dancing.

He also started scribbling for the first time. I gave him some washable crayons and he drew all over a page, in multiple colors. He also chewed on the crayons and ended up with a purple face. Oh well.

And he played on the deck. He doesn’t usually get to, because I feel that it will require too much close supervision, but Papa was there. He danced and sang around the deck, playing in the planters, and generally being the boy.

He’s a very artistic boy, I think. All the singing and dancing and drawing. He even demanded to play the piano, then sat there on Papa’s lap, playing with the keys. I believe in fostering his interests, but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that both Papa and Mama are artistic.

See more progress on: Go on adventures with Adventure Boy!

Yes might mean more than I thought

I have spent so many years saying “no,I can’t” to life, that saying “yes” has come to mean accepting opportunities and taking chances and being active—DOing stuff.

But I am in a stage of life right now that is limited by many things—the responsibility of taking care of a child, having a limited budget, having very limited free time, also the physical limitations of being pregnant mean I just don’t have the energy or focus I normally do.

My adventures have to pull back to fit my life. It doesn’t mean I should say ‘no’ to everything, but I have to be reallistic about what works for me, for us.

So I was just thinking about what it means to be saying “yes” in this situation. Maybe it’s also about saying “yes” to my life—as it is. Accepting life for flaws, loving the positives, knowing it can’t ever be perfect. Accepting, even the limitations. Realizing that they aren’t about stealing something from my life or denying my happiness, but just my life as it is. Limitations add shape to life, they do, but my life is still my life, within those boundaries.

So maybe I can say yes to my apartment, a cozy and comfy place, even though it is always in transition, between cleanings, or big projects, cluttered with the stuff of living. Maybe I can say “yes” to my relationship, even though we don’t spend a lot of time alone together, because he is working to provide for us, and I am working to raise our son and keep our home, and we both still need time to ourselves. Maybe I can say “yes” to my need to nap whenever the boy naps, or constantly graze to feed myself, or being unable to remember my phone number or keep a conversation—because it means I am growing another human being inside of me. Accept who I am and the place I am in my life.

That doesn’t mean that I allow it all to fall apart. Let go of dreams and responsibilities. I still have those, I still want to write my novel and see the world and have a great, fulfilling relationship, and a gorgeous home and good friends, but perfection will never happen. I don’t want to keep looking down on what I do have because it doesn’t look like the perfect picture I have in my head.

Saying “yes” might now mean, “Yes, this is my life, and it is good.”

See more progress on: say yes to life

I am an Improved Brain Power

I have been putting energy into not giving in to my baby-brian. Getting sleep is a big thing here. Plus actually thinking about things, actively, as opposed to passively watching tv.

However, I’ve also decided to accept the state of my brain power. I am actively trying to use it, but I am not going to fight the power of hormones, either.

Did you know that studies have found pregnant women lose around 2% of their brain. Something about protein or acids or something that the baby sucks right out of your garbanzo bean. I’d give you exact details on the studies or percentage or what actually is being removed from your brain, but those are the facts that have been taken over by baby making. Oh well.

See more progress on: improve my brain power

Creative Blocks and Momhood

Grab the moment when you have it. Grab the inspiration when it arrives. If the moment and the inspiration come at the same time, is it really better to do the dishes? It’s easier, that’s for sure. It’s far less scary. You don’t push any boundaries by washing the dishes that have been sitting in the sink. You can stay in the nice, safe territory of “but I’m a mom and I have so much to do and I have no time/energy/opportunity to create.” It’s a lot riskier to sit down and face the demon of the blank page.

I’m stuggling, right now. My urge to create has evaporated with my energy and my concentration. My excuse is that I am pregnant, again, and just recently escaped the first trimester. My last pregnancy, I didn’t write or paint or journal or craft or sing or dance or even listen to music, I just gestated. I sat and gestated—surely a creative act, as is raising a child, but not an artistic one at all. I was like a chicken sitting on her egg. I was broody hen. I was brooding. Am right now.

I can’t bear to lose another nine months of creativity. Nine months and more, if you think about the long months after birth when you have a tiny creature totally dependent upon you, who wakes you up every hour to nurse. The exhaustion nearly made me psychotic. I’m terrified of becoming this exhausted, brooding, non-creative thing. I’m worried about sinking into this new being and losing my old one. But I can’t do it. I need to be creative, both for myself and for my child/children. I need to do it for my relationship with their father, too, because the less I create, the crankier and meaner I get.

These are my issues right now. But anytime you create, you are going to be faced with issues. Come to think of it, these have really always been my issues—exhaustion, feeling ill, getting distracted by other tasks, putting myself and my needs last, procrastination, depression, lack of self confidence. It’s almost like being a mother and being pregnant institutionalizes what once was just my individual bugaboo. Now I’ve got hormones to blame, or a baby who needs my time, or morning sickness, or the energy drain of chasing after a toddler, or needing to keep the house from becoming a permanent pig pen, or making sure everyone gets enough of the right kind of food to keep on chugging. So many “mom” things to do.

And it doesn’t always feel so victorious when I push through my blocks and get creative anyway. What once would feel courageous now feels selish. What once was considered focus now feels like neglect of child and home and partner.

How to reconcile this? Who comes first, the mom-role, or the artist-role? Does it have to be one or the other? One over the other? Can’t a mom carve the time out of the day to be both, to do both?

It seems like it should be possible. The busiest people are often the most productive—I know I’ve always gotten so much done when I had the most on my plate, strangely. Maybe it’s about having the will and determination to do it. Maybe it’s about overcoming your fears and flaws and excuses, just like it is for everyone. Maybe it’s about figuring out what works for you and your family and your work. Maybe it’s about what the sneaker company says. Just do it.