It’s not easy to call ourselves what we really are: writer.
Mostly because there are so many things we think we have to do first. We have to get a book deal, with a large publisher. We have to get a thousand or ten thousand followers. We have to make it to a bestseller list and see our name in print in all the literary magazines, and we have to snag all the best interviews and do the work of being a big wig. We have to become something before we have the privilege of being a writer. We have to have an agent, we have to have a book in the bookstores, we have to check off all these boxes before we can really call ourselves a writer.
That’s not true.
Now. I’m not suggesting we swing to the other side of the pendulum, which I’ve noticed has happened lately. We can’t really call ourselves a writer if we’re just sending out random emails every few days. We can’t really call ourselves a writer if we sporadically send a letter to one of our family members once a month or so. The most important prerequisite for calling ourselves a writer is doing the work, every day.
[Tweet “What really makes us a writer is, at its simplest, the work.”]
Maybe this will help us get over our fear that we’re not really a writer, that we’re some imposter who still needs to do this or that before we’re considered professional.
Doubt can creep in when we use the W word to describe ourselves when someone asks us what we do. There have been times in my life when I’ve told someone what it is I do, because I do it for at least three hours every day, and they look at me with their eyes glazed over in disbelief, because, you know, everybody is a writer now. But you know what? I do the work. Every single week I crank out between 40,000 and 60,000 words. I’m a writer.
You are, too. Even if you’re cranking out 10,000 words a week, or 1,000 words a day or 500 or 250 words a day, you are a writer. If you’re doing the work every single day (or every writing day we’ve scheduled–because it takes a schedule to make it happen), then you can call yourself a writer, too.
See, we don’t have to have everything perfectly in place. We don’t have to prove that we’re a legitimate writer by having a publishing deal to show for all our work or checking off the list the world thinks we have to finish before we’re legit; we just have to do the work.
You know what’s going to happen if we’re doing the work? We’re going to get better and better, because we’re always practicing, we’re always inviting in the muse and then exercising it. And we’re going to be better at the end of that year we wrote 250 words a day than we were when we started.
This means, of course, that many of us are writers and don’t even know it. Some of us write for publications, and we call ourselves journalists, but we’re really writers. I called myself by the wrong name for years. I thought I was just regurgitating the facts and not using any of my own creativity, but that wasn’t true. I used as much of my creativity then as I do now, except I was telling true stories, and it gave me the priceless practice of telling the true stories of my life (because when you’re a journalist, there’s not room for exaggeration or untruth)—great training for memoir.
I know it’s not easy. Calling yourself a writer is sort of a scary thing, because people don’t really understand what it means, and they have their own expectations. The follow-up question that I typically hear when I mention that I’m a writer is, oh, have I heard of your books? And I have to say, Probably not, because most of them are out in submission and some of them have been self-published and only sold a handful of copies. But I’m getting there. I’m building a writing career, and soon, maybe, I’ll have more popular books. It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t. I’m still a writer, because every day, between the hours of 12:30 and 3:30 p.m., I stand in front of my standing desk, and I write. That’s enough. I’m a writer.
So what building a business as a writer really comes down to is the commitment. Are we willing to commit to the work of being a writer? Will we write every day (or at least most days)? Will we do it regardless of how we feel? Last week my family and I were hit by “The Plague”—our name for a stomach virus, because with a family of eight, it recurs in delightful cycles—and I still worked. (Sat down, though. Every time I stood up, my insides started climbing out. I know you wanted to know that.)
The other day I was taking my kids to the church nursery, and there was a new person working. She and I got to talking, because she was noticing my 3-year-old twins and she’s always been fascinated with twins (as the 3-year-olds ran in and destroyed the room in five seconds). She asked if I stayed home with them all. I told her, no, I’m a writer. She asked what kind of writing, and I told her. I’ve had lots of practice with this script, believe me, but still I found that my words were coming out sort of apologetically. Now. This has a little to do with the large family thing, and people expecting that a mom of a large family stays home with her kids, but some of it also has to do with not really believing that I’m a writer.
Even now, even after pursing this writing thing for more than a year, I had to remind myself: I’m a writer because I do the work.
Like I said, it’s not easy.
But we can remind ourselves, in those moments when doubt peeks over our shoulders, that we’re writers because we’re doing the work. And if we’re not doing the work? Then take out the schedule, mark off the time and get to work.
How to get started:
1. Start with some morning pages.
I do this every morning. I write exactly three pages on whatever I want in a composition book. What this usually amounts to is a brain dump—all the things that are swirling in my mind, leftover dreams or worries or things I need to do for the day. I don’t try to be creative with it. I just write. Sometimes I write about what I did the day before. Sometimes I write about the argument I had with my husband. Sometimes I write about how I’m worried about the 9-year-old and his attitude lately. This is not something intended for anyone else’s eyes, though sometimes I find the beginnings of a blog or a story in it.
2. Write to a prompt.
If you’re having trouble getting started, try writing to a prompt. I have a folder filled with one-word writing prompts. I’m actually using them to write a memoir right now. I take a word and write on it for as long as I need to (you can set a timer if you want and come back to it later). It’s amazing how many memories of mine are associated with the word “snake.” Prompts are great for drawing out what’s in our subconscious without much pressure on us.
I use other prompts, too. This year I challenged myself to write a poem a day, and I’ve been using quotes from authors for that one. I have a fiction project that I wrote based on the pictures a friend of mine sent me. Photos are great for stirring up creativity, at least for me. It’s probably my favorite prompt to use.
3. Call yourself what you are.
Next time someone asks you what you do, try out, “I write,” even if you don’t make a living from it. It’ll feel weird at first (and they’ll have a whole bunch of questions), but you’ll get used to it. But you’ll never have the opportunity to get used to it if you never say the words in the first place.
Week’s prompt:
Photos have an amazing ability to unlock our creativity. So write on this photo for as long as you want. Write what you see, write what it makes you think about, write what you feel. Just write.
My house hears so many words. If these walls could talk, they would never, ever stop—because my kids never, ever stop, either.
I’m in the word business. I write for a living. I’m used to sorting through words all day, and I’m used to hearing a running commentary in my brain. But if one were to spend three seconds of time in my living room, one might think that being in the word business also means being in the listening-to-kids-talk-all-over-each-other business, because that’s clearly what my kids believe. Someone is always talking. Someone else is always talking over the first one. And then someone else is always talking all over that noise. I go through a system malfunction every ten minutes.
Even though I’m in the word business, I use few of them to communicate verbally. This probably comes from my journalistic training. When I need to say something, I say it succinctly and clearly and leave it at that. None of my kids got this trait. Every one of them inherited the communication style of my husband, which is rambling and sprawling and way too many words for not enough time. When one of the boys (or the man) in my house starts talking, I could catch the first couple of sentences, go out back and mow the entire yard and come in and not have missed a thing, because everything in the middle was just “thinking out loud.” All I need from them is the intro and the conclusion, and I’m set. I know exactly what needs saying.
Now. This is not to say that I am not very, very glad that my kids enjoy talking to me, because the oldest is turning double-digits in November and I know that the days of talking for hours are about to come to a close, and I’m going to be begging him to talk to me soon. So I always try my best to wear a straight face, keep focused eyes trained on their face and give the proper responses to let them know I’m listening (even if I’m not). This was also acquired in my journalistic training, when I would conduct interviews with people who would tell me all about their nephew who’d been put in prison for embezzling the funds of his stepfather rather than telling me about the hand-carved chess set he’d made for the International Chess Tournament, which is why I was there (I have one of those faces, I guess. And I’m also really good at listening. Or am I?).
But when my 9-year-old starts telling me about how he traded this one Pokemon card to get another Pokemon card and how he’s really glad that his friend had this one that he’s been trying to find for a while and how he’s going to keep saving his money so that he can make sure he has enough money to have it for a new package of Pokemon cards, or maybe he’ll buy the 15-card pack, no maybe he’ll just save up for the 100-card pack, and this is what you have to look for when you’re trading Pokemon cards, energy power and the exact fighting power and evolution pieces, and do you want to know how many Pokemon cards he has right now? my teeth start falling asleep.
This kid will hijack a whole afternoon if you mention the words “LEGO Minecraft” or “What do you want for your birthday” or “Pokem—” (you can’t even finish that one before he’s off and running). He’ll follow you around while you’re changing the baby’s diaper and while you’re stirring soup on the stove and while you’re pouring all the milk and setting the table, back and forth, back and forth, like an extra appendage I keep tripping over. He won’t stop talking until all his brothers come crashing to the table and he can no longer talk over the voices vying for attention, and we all just give up on having conversation until they’re actually shoveling food in their faces.
Get the 6-year-old started on talking about what he did in school today, and he’ll tell you what he did and what all his classmates did, too, because he’s the kind of kid who notices everything, and you’ll never get a word in edgewise until you ask him if he wants a fruit dessert tonight, okay, then, start eating your dinner.
And then there’s the 5-year-old telling me about all the ways he could have killed himself today, because he’s the daring one in the bunch, who hangs upside down off the monkey bars and tries to jump over a 15-foot fence while bouncing on the trampoline. I’d rather not hear what he has to say.
My kids get better with practice. They’re so skilled now at beginning to talk about one thing and ending up on another subject entirely that I don’t even feel bad about getting lost along the way anymore. It’s anyone’s guess how we got here.
Because one kid can use up a billion words in one “quick” answer to a question, I’ve settled into a bit of a habit lately. I’m well aware that it’s not a good habit. But it’s one that keeps me sane, until we can figure out how to slow down the word vomit rocketing straight from their brains out their mouth. When one of my kids opens his mouth and I know it’s going to be a while before he closes it again, I find myself daydreaming a little. (I don’t miss much, because I could say in 40 words what they say in 15,000. So I don’t feel so badly.)
My daydreams go a little something like this.
What would it be like to have a clean house?
I wonder if we could budget in a house cleaner this month. Geez, I would have to clean up the house before I even let anyone come clean it. Look at that sink. Disgusting. What kinds of pigs live here? I don’t even want to think about the bathrooms upstairs. Someone would come here and walk right back out, because it would be too hard to get a house like this one clean. They wouldn’t be able to offer their money-back guarantee. It’s probably too far gone for eco-friendly supplies, too. I wonder if any of my friends have a good recommendation for a good house cleaning serv—
That sounds like he’s finishing up. Time for me to pay attention.
I wish it were the weekend.
I’m so glad Mom’s taking the kids this weekend. It will be so nice to sleep without six other bodies in the house. All these words. Sheesh. Are they ever done with words? Maybe I’ll have some time to just lie on the bed and read without anybody wanting anything from me. Yeah, right. That’s a dream that will never come true. I wonder what they’ll do at Mom’s. Probably play out in the dirt piles, which means I’ll have to wash their shoes again, because they’ll bring it all home, and the detoxing time. I forgot about the detoxing time. I’m going to have to add that into my schedule next week. It’s always a pain getting them back on the schedule. I’m not going to think about that right now. They’ll be nightmares, but I’ll be coming off a blissful no-kids weekend.
“That sounds interesting,” I’ll say, because I’ve noticed that a boy is finishing up.
Someone please send me to bed.
I’m so tired. All these words make me more tired. I have a word limit, and I reached it half an hour after they got home from school. I need a break. What time is it? Five more hours. The bed is going to feel so nice.
(At this point, my eyelids start drooping, and I require a pinch, which I fully recognize and execute efficiently enough to make my eyes water. The boys hardly ever notice their mama is almost crying during their story about how they did 98 consecutive jumps over the jump rope in P.E. (That’s the gist, anyway. It’s not anywhere close to that concise.)
We should learn sign language.
We really should. I bet that would keep my attention better, and, bonus, they wouldn’t use so many words, because it would actually be work. This is a brilliant idea.
“I think we should learn sign language,” I say, interrupting the 5-year-old reading me an Elephant and Piggie book to demonstrate all the new words he knows now (He’s been telling me about them for the last half hour).
Well, you know, it’s not foolproof. I don’t always get it right. But then I just bring it around to a lesson. “Remember how you interrupted Daddy when he was trying to talk to me earlier this morning? That’s exactly how it feels. I was just trying to show you.”
I’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy reading humor books. Some of my favorite humor writers include Erma Bombeck, Jim Gaffigan and Dave Barry. I recently read Carol Burnett’s memoir This Time Together, which wasn’t a straight-up humor book but was more a record of her rise to fame.
Burnett was part of a comedy troupe back before I was born, and she had a fascinating life. Sometimes, when comedians write their memoirs, they drop a lot of names or talk about things that lose readers if they’re not familiar with the shows they’re talking about, but even though Burnett was before my time, I found that This Time Together was not hard to follow.
This Time Together was the story of how Burnett got started in comedy and what it was like once she did. She and her kid sister grew up with their grandmother, and she launched out on her own when a wealthy friend gave her some money with the stipulation that when she made it famous, she would have to pay him back.
Burnett was a self-made woman, which I admire about her. It was fascinating to read the words of such a remarkable woman who made a name for herself during a time when women weren’t considered all that funny. She had some great stories about people she met along the way, her family, and other comedy legends who existed around that time.
One of the things I loved most about the book was that Burnett never made fun of another colleague but only told stories that they would have approved of, whether they were living or dead. I really respected that about her (not a lot of comedians or comediennes can stop themselves from the temptation of Making Fun of Other Colleagues). It couldn’t have been easy fighting for a place in a man’s world, and Burnett did it on her own merit—not only with integrity but also with class.
One of the lines I liked best in the book was this one:
“I have always believed there is something more to this world than just us. I remember being four years old and lying on the grass in the backyard in San Antonio looking up at that clouds. I don’t know how much time passed before I felt my body merging with the sky and the ground. I was everything, and everything was me.”
It shares a depth of Burnett that isn’t often seen when one is writing and performing humor; so I liked seeing another side of her personality—that wondering imagination of a child that resonates with the truth of humanity.
Burnett shares all sorts of funny stories, from something her daughter did at a restaurant, to her and Julie Andrews embarrassing themselves in front of Lady Bird Johnson—and what I loved about her humor was that it was humor from real life. There’s so much humor around us if we have on the right kind of eyes. Burnett draws that out. It was clear that Burnett finds humor in her everyday experiences—not by making fun of other people but by seeing the irony and the satire in her own life—which helps readers do the same in their own lives.
Interspersed with the humorous stories, Burnett sprinkled in serious parts that made me cry. It was by turns funny and emotional. She ended the book on a serious note, with a story about her daughter, Carrie, who had introduced the plan to turn Burnett’s first memoir into a play. The memoir was written about Burnett’s mother and father and her grandmother. Burnett and her daughter worked on it together, but in the middle of the project, Carrie was diagnosed with lung cancer and died before the play, which ended up winning a Tony Award, even debuted. The last section, written in such a raw way, made me cry, of course (big feelings). Carol, faced with finishing the project without her daughter, did not even want to get out of bed, she said, but then her husband told her she owed it to her daughter to finish the play and make sure it got produced. And so she did.
All in all, This Time Together was a great read, and I’ll probably go back and read all of Burnett’s other memoirs, because I enjoyed her style of writing. Her chapters were short, which makes a reader feel like they’re making significant progress even though they’ve only really read three pages. “Well, I finished a chapter,” I’d say, before the kids would come knocking on my door, trying to find me. “Now I feel accomplished.”
So you’ll laugh, you’ll feel inspired, and, if you’re like me, you’ll also cry—which is exactly what a book should make you do.
Every month I sit with a beautiful group of ladies and discuss our book of the month and, mostly, our lives. We eat chocolate and drink a little wine and sort through all the things that have happened to us in the stretch between the last book club meeting and this one.
At the most recent meeting, we found ourselves talking about beauty and body image (because we’re women, and this is a big deal to women).
One of my friends is a teacher. Something had recently happened in her school, where some first-grade girls were playing on the playground and, because they all took gymnastics, they decided to start a gymnastics club. There was another little girl who did not take gymnastics but who wanted to be in the club, too. When she asked, one of the little girls (who is only 6 or 7, keep in mind), told her, “You have to be skinny to be in the gymnastics club.”
She didn’t say this in a mean way or a judgmental way or a meant-to-be-hurtful way. She said it matter-of-factly, repeating something she’d been told by her coaches.
So the other little girl, who was not allowed into this playground gymnastics club, went home and asked if her mom, who is thin, could help her be thinner. This little girl is not fat. She’s just rounder, as many 6- and 7-year-olds who have not yet grown into their bodies, are. Her mom took the problem to the school, trying to figure out why her daughter, who was way too young to be aware of body image, had come home asking how she could be thinner.
The little girls don’t know any better. But the adults in their lives do. And we should be doing better than this.
Do you know what a little girl hears when she is 6 years old and can’t be in some stupid club because she’s not thin enough? She will hear for the rest of her life that she is not thin enough to be in some ridiculous exclusive club.
I know. I was once that little girl.
See, when I was 6 years old, my parents didn’t have a whole lot of money. But they scrimped up enough to put me in a ballet class. I was a tall girl, awkward—big-boned, my mother called me. When I look back at the pictures of me as a child, I was not a fat little girl, but I was built a little larger than others. When my mom was discussing the ballet lessons with my instructor, after I’d taken them for a couple of months, the instructor, who was an actual French ballerina, told her, within my hearing, that I was probably going to be too fat for ballet and my mom should just save her money. She said it matter-of-factly, as if there was no room for argument.
Now. I understand that there are certain body types that lend themselves more naturally to skills like ballet, and there are certain body types that make gymnastics easier. But if we are urging our 6-year-olds to concern themselves with being thinner just so they can achieve that body type and somehow have some kind of leg up on all the others, then we’re going about it all wrong. Girls this young should not even be aware of their bodies and what’s wrong with them. We have plenty of time to realize those things later, if the world has anything to say about it. Girls this young should be playing out on school playgrounds, enjoying the company of other “gymnasts” in their gymnastics club or twirling around like the “ballerina” they imagine themselves to be, without looking at their body and thinking they need to change it.
I know coaches want to win. I know instructors want what is best for their students, and oftentimes what is best is gently pushing them out of whatever lessons they’re taking, because they’re just not cut out for it. But using the body as a way to push them out? THAT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE.
I went through my high school, college and young adult years starving myself, still trying to prove that I was thin enough to be beautiful, thin enough to be a successful journalist, thin enough to be a good dancer, thin enough to be graceful, thin enough to be accepted, thin enough to be “in the group,” and, sure, it wasn’t all because of that ballet instructor, but the early memories of someone commenting negatively on a girl’s body have a way of sinking down deep and festering there. So when we tell our 6-year-old girls that they don’t have a thin enough body to do (blank), what we’re doing is handing them a ticket straight to eating disorder hell. Or body hatred hell. Or body dysmorphia hell. Or whatever it becomes in the life of that little girl. It manifests in many different ways. Anxiety, obsession, depression. Those, too.
Stop telling little girls they’re not thin enough.
Stop exalting the idea that there is only one body type that is beautiful. Stop ruining girls’ perceptions of themselves. Stop making our little girls hyper-aware of their bodies before they’re even able to properly spell the word “bodies.” Stop teaching them that beauty is all there is to women.
I don’t have a little girl. I don’t get to assure her that she’s beautiful just the way she was made. I don’t get to tell her that she is perfect in every way. I don’t get to explain that, yeah, it’s good to make healthy choices and do good things for our bodies, but it’s never okay to starve ourselves just to fit a certain prototype that is exalted above all the others.
But if I did have a daughter, this is what I would say:
You are beautiful just the way you are. You are more than your body. So much more. Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something just because of the way you look. You are brave and creative and kind and strong and good enough.
Because these are the things I wish someone had told me.
We were just kids when you would follow me around wherever I went, and maybe I thought it was annoying at the time, because I didn’t really want a kid sister talking to all my friends and embarrassing me with all her questions and messing up my “popularity.” A kid sister could detract from popularity in the blink of an eye. (I had much to learn, you see.)
And I remember being on the playground in that tiny elementary school. I remember, first, the house across the street from the playground, and I remember running on the worn-out path around merry-go-round and Mom telling us to make sure you held on tight, because it was dangerous, and I remember the times you fell and the times we told our stories so we didn’t get in trouble. I remember swinging on the porch swing not even six feet from the place where Mom had chopped up the snakes that fell from a tree one Sunday morning, and I remember sitting beside you in a brand new church right down the street that held stained glass windows that gave it a sense of meaning and depth and beauty, even to kids.
I remember the white stone house and the room we shared and the way you’d always fall asleep before I did, because you were always a better sleeper, and you probably didn’t imagine the claws of Freddy Krueger tapping on your window and the giant wolves waiting for you right outside the room and the monsters that lived in the corner shadows and, especially, the closet. I remember coming back into my room and finding my Cabbage Patch dolls with lipstick smeared on their faces, because you’d gotten into Mom’s makeup and thought they needed a little help with the way their creepy faces looked. I remember returning to my room after school and finding my Barbies laid out on my bed, because you’d dunked them all in the toilet, thinking they needed their hair washed.
I remember singing to the kids Bible songs on a CD and trying to teach you harmony when you were too young to sing it, and how I felt when you unraveled all the tape and hid the destroyed result under your pillow so I wouldn’t find out. I remember singing Teenagers in love and getting mad when you messed up the oooh, oooh, wha-oooh, oooh. I remember both of us always singing around the house while our brother played Mario on the Nintendo. I remember recording your crying on a tape recorder, because it sounded just like an ambulance, and the way we laughed about it for so long.
I remember moving to Ohio, walking to school in the snow that stayed for longer than we ever thought it would and the fun of throwing snowballs, and the time I threw a snowball that must have had a rock in it, because it made a giant knot on the middle of your forehead, and our brother and I convinced you to tell Mom you’d accidentally fallen on the way to school. I remember watching you that first day of school, walking into your downstairs first-grade classroom while I went upstairs to fourth grade. I remember sharing another room with you, this one with bunk beds because it was too small for anything else. I remember putting my hand on my Sally doll’s cool face, and I remember keeping it there until the voices in the next room faded and her face grew warm.
I remember moving back to Houston with you, for the year we lived with our grandmother, when we would get you in trouble by blaming you for the antics we pulled, even though everybody knew we were the brains behind the operation. I remember taking all the cushions off Memaw’s couch and flipping over the sides, with someone posted at the lookout (usually you) so we’d know when she got home and we could clean up real quick. I remember walking into Mom’s classroom at the end of a school day, and you’d already be there, because the second graders were walked to their respective places, but the fifth graders took their time. I remember eating Poncho’s with you for our all-As report cards, back when schools gave incentives for that kind of thing.
I remember moving back to the place we first left, and this time we shared a room and a day bed, you on the trundle that pushed in beneath it. And by this time we were nearly the same size, so I remember you’d borrow clothes and we would borrow friends and you joined the marching band, and we fought like sisters do, and I couldn’t wait to leave our house.
And then I remember leaving, and, a week later, thinking that you were the one I missed most, and so I convinced you to come to my college, even though the same year you came was the year I met my husband, and I always felt a little bad about that—it was almost like it was a waste, because we couldn’t spend a whole lot of time together, because all my extra time was spent with him, and it was just the beginning of a man taking the place of a sister. But what I would learn later is that a man can never replace a sister, because a sister is forever and a sister is blood and a sister will always be around, forever and ever. I remember hurting you and apologizing, and I remember trying to fix you up with the next best thing to my husband, because he really was a good man, but you found your own good man in time.
There were so many things you did for me in those later years. It was you who planned the bridal shower, and it was you who planned my bachelorette party, when we all had to sleep on the floor, because my husband and I didn’t want to sleep on the brand new bed until we were sleeping on it together—silly now that I think about it (we all had sore backs the next morning), but you didn’t even blink an eye. You came the first day I had my first son and cleaned my house and cooked some meals and held the baby for a bit, and when you left, you hugged me and reminded me that I knew what I was doing, that I would make it, that everything would be okay.
Now you’re raising your own babies. And I just wanted to tell you, today, what I see:
I see a woman who has become a woman secure in her own skin. I see a mother who loves her children with a love that is fierce and true and wild and hopeful and forever. I see a devoted wife. I see someone who has overcome darkness and chosen to radiate light in her overcoming. I see someone who has taken in the fatherless and spoken a new name over their hearts. I see someone who is lovely and worthy and remarkable. I see someone I feel so proud not just to know but to also call Sister.
I am so thankful for who you are and what you have done in my life, because you have done a lot in my life, whether you know it for not. You have shown me what it means to love in unconditional ways, and you have shown me what it means to forgive a person who hurts you (I was quite a beast pre-wedding. I still feel like I should apologize for that.), and you have shown me what it means to sacrifice in order to make a special day an even more special day.
I don’t think in all my years or in all my searching, if I were, in fact, searching, I could ever find a sister quite as wonderful as you. Happy birthday, Sister. May you have many, many more.
In this episode, Rachel talks about two humor books she recently read, some social media tactics for business owners, the importance of being still, a new book launch community she set up and the music she listens to while writing Fairendale.
5-year-old: I can’t do it!
Me:
5-year-old: There. I got my shoes on.
Me: All right! You can do hard things!
5-year-old: Can I build a house? No.
Husband: You can sit in your seat until it’s time for dinner.
3-year-old: No.
Husband: Get in your seat.
3-year-old: I don’t want to get in my seat.
Me: Daddy’s being nice. I would have put you to bed early.
3-year-old: You’re evil.
Husband: A man lives in an all-pink one-story house. What color are the stairs?
9-year-old: Not enough information.
Husband: A man lives in an all-pink one-story house. What color are the stairs?
9-year-old: Oh, there are no stairs, because it’s a on-story. I could have said they were pink, but that would have been wrong, because a one-story house doesn’t have stairs, right? Unless it’s levitated. Like Nonny and Poppy’s.
6-year-old [examining his skin closely]: I think I’m shedding some skin here.
6-year-old: Dear God, please help us stop tooting. Amen.
Husband: Sometimes toots are good for us. Maybe just pray that they don’t smell bad.
6-year-old: I can never do that. My toots always smell. They smell like rotten broccoli.
3-year-old: I have swim trunks and a penis.
Me: What?
3-year-old: I have swim trunks and a penis.
Husband: I think what he’s trying to say is he has no underwear on.
The most asked question I get when I tell people I’m an author who is also the mom of six children is this: “How do you do it all?”
[Tweet “The important truth we have to learn when we’re writers who are parents: We can’t do it all.”]
I mean, we can try. But we’re going to end up frustrated and burned out and exhausted from the trying.
It’s taken me a long, long time to learn this truth—not just in my writing projects but also in the interior of my life. There are so many projects that come to me on a monthly and weekly and daily basis, and I have them all written down in a massive brainstorm binder, where I let them sit and flesh out, if they want to, while I’m not looking. Sometimes it’s just a phrase jotted down on a piece of notebook paper. Sometimes it’s the opening line for a book or a story or a poem. Sometimes it’s a whole paragraph of information about a character who’s insisting that I write about him or that I explore her story.
I can’t get to all of them at the same time, that’s easy enough to see.
But what’s not quite as easy to see is that I will also not be able to get to all the other things in my life. This “you won’t be able to do it all” applies to something larger than just my writing career. It applies to my life as a mother and wife and volunteer and friend and sister and daughter.
I can’t tell you how many times I go somewhere or hear from someone who enjoys my work, and usually the second thing they say after “I enjoyed that essay about (fill in the blank)” is “I don’t know how you do it all.”
It’s indicative of our society to notice that this is a universal comment that comes to me on a regular basis. I get it. It’s because I’m the mom of six kids, and yet I still manage to produce tens of thousands of words every week. How in the world do I do it all?
Well, you should see my house.
The thing is, when we’re parent writers, we will reach that point where we have to ask ourselves, “Is this something that’s important to do right now, or can it wait?” This is the question I ask most often of my responsibilities around the house. Things like laundry, cooking dinner, tidying the house, those are nonnegotiable for me. Kids have to be clothed, they have to eat, and I function best in a (mostly) tidy house. But things like scrubbing the baseboards and cleaning the insides of counters and moving the stove so I can mop the floor underneath it? Those are negotiable.
I recently missed my oldest’s third-grade field trip, the first one I’ve missed in the years he’s been in school. I was all torn up about it, until I remembered that we’re not going to be able to volunteer at every school event with our kids, just like we’re not going to be able to have a perfectly spotless house and we’re not gong to be able to have meetings with those people we used to meet with every day of the week if we’re really serious about using our time to make a career out of this writing thing.
I stay home with my kids half the day, and the other half of the day I have roped off for working. Writing. That means I don’t schedule meetings with friends and I don’t volunteer at my kids’ school, unless it’s a week where I can afford to take some time away.
Our society demands a whole lot from us. I’m a mom of kids in school, and that means there are parties to volunteer for, programs to attend, end-of-year-parties and playdates and all kinds of things that will creep into my work time if I let it. It’s not easy to look at our schedules and know how to label one thing negotiable and one thing non-negotiable, but it has to be done.
[Tweet “If we don’t schedule our writing time like it’s work time, we’ll never finish our book.”]
Something will always compete for our time. It might be the kids, who want a ride to the store so they can spend that $5 they got in the mail yesterday. It might be a friend, calling just to talk. It might be the floors and all those spots, reminding you it’s been way too long since it was mopped.
We’re not going to be able to do it all, writers. What’s more important: mopping a floor or writing a story?
I know which one I’d choose.
We’re not going to be able to do it all. We’re not.
Sometimes this will bother us. Sometimes I regret that I didn’t volunteer at my second son’s kindergarten Christmas party, like I had volunteered at his big brother’s, because work was too busy. So we adjust. This year I made accommodations and finished up a project early so I could do volunteer at his first-grade party instead. Because sometimes, we can justify the break, when we know we’ve been working hard all year and now we deserve to take a day off. But when I look around my house and see the dust an inch thick on my bookshelves and tables, I don’t feel the least bit guilty. Because my writing time is worth sacrificing that one little thing so that I have a few more minutes to change a life or two.
We have to be able to rid ourselves of the pressure to do it all. Society doesn’t make it easy, but we have to do it. We have to look at all the things we could set aside, even if it’s just for a season, just until we get this one manuscript finished, that’s all we’re asking, and then we have to make sure we’re okay with that decision.
[Tweet “We’ll never be able to be the best at anything if we’re trying to do it all.”]
How to combat the urge to do it all:
1. Hire someone.
If it’s in your budget to hire someone to help out with something, then do it. If you need a sitter for a couple of months until you can finish something pressing and get it out into the world, do it. If you need a house cleaner because you’re not that great at cleaning anyway, then do it. If you need a lawn team to take care of yours, hire them. There are reasons these services exist, and what you’re really doing is buying yourself time and energy.
2. Discuss with your spouse and children what you might be able to let slide for a season.
Sometimes you’ll let the cleaning stuff slide, sometimes you’ll let the cooking slide and just eat picnic dinners for a season, sometimes you won’t be the one signing all the school papers. Sometimes you won’t worry about organizing the garage right now, because there’s too much on your plate anyway. Sometimes you’ll stop attending that Wednesday night meeting because you need the time elsewhere. It’s okay to let some things slide for a time.
Do I need to say it again? It’s okay to let some things slide. You don’t have to do it all.
3. Delegate.
Some of the tasks that are on our plates we can delegate to others. My boys know how to hold a dusting wand, which means they can start doing this job for me. It may not look like I want it to look when it’s all said and done, but that’s okay. Help is help. And they’re helping me pursue my dream by taking my place dusting, whatever that looks like.
4. Make a “no” list.
This is helpful when you’re a yes person like me. Here’s the typical formula: If someone asks me to do something for them, I answer yes. I don’t like disappointing people. I have a hard time saying no. If you make a list of all the things to which you’d have to answer “no,” if asked, the list will help guide your decisions in every situation. Goals can also help with this, if you’re not so keen on making a “no” list.
5. Take a day off.
Determine whether a day off here and there is something you can do and still get back into the rhythm of creating. (We don’t have to say no to everything that doesn’t serve our purpose. There’s room for fun.)
Like I said, at the end of last year, I decided that I was going to volunteer at my boys’ Christmas parties. There were three of them in school at the time, and I had to divide my time among the three of them, but we had a grand time. I was able to plan for that volunteering and then adjust my workload accordingly. It meant I had to work a little harder on the week before, but it was totally worth it.
Week’s prompt:
Write a poem that is really a wish list for all the things you feel like you need in order to launch a writing career.
Dear Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Adult Americans, and, especially my two parents, sitting over there, shaking their heads:
Today marks the end of the third year I’ve been alive, and let me just tell you, this year is going to be hell. Sorry for the dirty word, Mama and Daddy, but I’m so not joking. Buckle up, because here I come.
I understand that because this is my third birthday, you’ll be going out of your minds over the course of the next year, but I’m just going to tell you, I got this. I know everything about everything, and so you can just stop trying to teach me the proper way to do things according to you. I know how to do EVERYTHING myself.
I know how to put on a jacket, even though you say I put it on inside out and upside down, Mom. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The hood is supposed to be on my booty. Just let me do it. I also know how to put on my shoes, even though you say I put them on the wrong foot. The toes are supposed to point out. That’s the way everybody wears them. You obviously don’t know anything.
I especially know how to plunge a toilet, so please stop trying to hide the plunger from me. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.
I hope we can work together this year on pretty much nothing, because I want to be the one who does everything. By myself. You want to help me into the car? Nope. I will walk back to the place you started helping me, and I will do it myself. Put my shoes on the right foot? Nope. I will take them back off and put them on the way I had them, because I will do it myself. Help me cross the street safely? Nope. I WILL DO IT MYSELF!
Don’t worry. I’ll go a little easy on you, at least when you’re sleeping. Wait. On second thought, that’s probably the time when I will attempt everything I shouldn’t do when eyes are watching, because everyone’s asleep, and what better time to sneak into the bathroom and drink a whole vial of Peace and Calming essential oil? What better time to sneak downstairs and drag a kitchen chair across the floor so I can reach the pan of brownies I saw you put in the microwave for safe keeping last night? What better time to pick a lock on the front door? You don’t even know what I’m capable of. But I’m about to show you. Oh, yes I am.
We are living in a time of extraordinary change—change that is reshaping you but is keeping me the same, because, you know, I’m perfect just the way I am. But you, you need to change. You especially need to stop telling me I need to get in the car 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. You need to stop telling me the orange plate is not clean when it’s the only plate I want to use today. And you need to remember that I like the green car grocery cart on Tuesdays and the red car grocery cart on Fridays. I don’t know why you can’t keep it all straight, because it’s the same two colors every week. Except when it’s yellow or blue. So you: change. Me: stay the same.
We’ve been through extraordinary change before. Remember when I first climbed out of my crib, and me and my twin brother would play with our poop and leave you a really nice painting on our walls and clothes and faces? You didn’t think you were going to make it out of that time alive, did you? And look at you now. You’re still alive, I’m still alive, we’re all still alive. And I will do greater things yet, and you will survive them, too.
You know, what was true then can be true now. All you have to do is let me do what I want, with no repercussions. This is really how kids want to live, you know, and it doesn’t matter what their parents say, this is actually the best way to live. Let us do whatever it is we want to do. If we want to take a black Sharpie marker and draw a lion’s mane on our face, let us. If we want to wear our 1-year-old brother’s pants in the dead of winter, let us. If we want to play with the cars instead of trains, but the trains are out and scattered everywhere, just let us play with the cars, too. Cleaning up is no fun, and we should never have to do it, ever again. That’s the first law I’d like passed.
Remember, it’s my spirit that has made the last three years so fun. You used to say that I had a lot of spirit. Well, it’s about to be a whole lot more, because I just figured out that I know how to take the toilet paper roll off the dispenser thingy, and now I will never tire of throwing the brand new toilet paper roll in the toilet and watching it curl at the edges. It always plugs up the toilet when I try to flush down the evidence, but that’s okay. I know how to plunge a toilet, remember?
You face some choices right now. Will you believe that I know what I’m doing, or will you constantly try to thwart me? I can tell you what I’ll do if you thwart me. I’ll cry at the top of my lungs for half an hour to the tune of “I dinnent have our lunch” so all the people in the park will stare at you. I’ll say I hate you and sometimes I’ll even hit or kick or bite to get my point across, because you’re unreasonable people, you parents. I’ll dump out a whole container of shape blocks, and I’ll throw a car across the room so it dents a wall and I’ll slam the door so the walls shake and your favorite picture falls down and breaks. That’s why you should never thwart me. Learn from your mistakes and move on, and we’ll all be that much happier. Me, especially. Which is all that really matters.
So let’s talk about some of the problems we have. First, there is you. And then there’s you. And then there is…you.
I know this isn’t easy. You always say that nothing worth doing is ever easy. You never know what you’re going to get when I get out of bed in the morning. Is it the clever one or the devilish one or the argumentative one or the loving one or the sad one or the angry one or the millions of other versions of myself? But I can promise you that in more than a year, when I am no longer 3, you will be so glad that time marches on, because it means I won’t stay 3 forever.
It will get better. I mean, no it won’t. Because I’m still here. But I’m clear-eyed and big-hearted and undaunted by challenge. You’ll still love me when this year is over.
Thank you. God bless me. God bless me, and God bless…me.
A memoir that recently captivated my heart was one written for the middle grade age. Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is a nonfiction memoir written in poetry, which I think is the best of both worlds. Woodson takes her readers through her birth and her growing-up years during the civil rights movement. She shares about her family background, all the setbacks she experienced as a little girl and when writing began to call to her.
I’m always fascinated by the lives of other people, especially when they’re writers, so I found myself completely lost in this story. I’d usually read it during our family’s Silent Reading Time, just before bed, and, every single night, I was surprised by the timer that says Silent Reading is over, which I call the mark of a great book.
Brown Girl Dreaming was a lovely read, and when I was trying to figure out why it was so lovely, I could only point to the language of it. Because the book is written in poetry, it is written in a beautiful language. Woodson took care with her words, and she fashioned them into just the right sort of combination so that they would not move through a mind but would rest in a heart.
Take her explanation of where she was born:
“I am born in Ohio but
the stories of South Carolina already run
like rivers
through my veins.”
The passage has great imagery, indicating that we are born into a family, but our history flows with many different places.
Woodson visited family themes frequently in Brown Girl Dreaming. Here she is speaking about some pictures she sorted through when she was just a girl.
“Look closely. There I am
in the furrow of Jack’s brow,
in the slyness of Alicia’s smile,
in the bend of Grace’s hand…
“There I am…
beginning.”
This resonated so deeply with me, because I enjoy looking at photos and trying to see the pieces in my family that I find in myself or in my boys. The passage speaks of heritage and existence.
Woodson was born in an important time, when black people were fighting for their rights. In one passage she says:
“I do not know if these hands will become
Malcolm’s—raised and fisted
or Martin’s—open and asking
or James’s—curled around a pen
I do not know if these hands will be
Rosa’s
or Ruby’s
gentle gloved
and fiercely folded
calmly in a lap,
on a desk,
around a book,
ready
to change the world…”
I find this a passage full of wonder and hope. She does not know what kind of life it will be for her. The image of the hands is a beautiful one—whose will she carry? It is the wondering of any child—will they be able to make a difference like all those who have come before?
Woodson showed off her grasp of beautiful language in several passages (too many to cite them all!):
Here, she is speaking of the death of an uncle:
“But the few words in my mother’s mouth
become the missing
after Odell dies—a different silence
than either of them has ever known.”
Here, she is documenting the difference between her grandmother and grandfather:
“And when we are called by our names
my grandmother
makes them all one
HopeDellJackie
but my grandfather
takes his sweet time, saying each
as if he has all day long
or a whole lifetime.”
Here, she is speaking of her mother and father trying to decide on her name:
“Name a girl Jack, my father said
and she can’t help but
grow up strong.
Raise her right, my father said,
and she’ll make that name her own.
Name a girl Jack
and people will look at her twice, my father said.
They compromised, of course, and named her Jacqueline.
And this passage, on what she finds when visiting her grandmother and grandfather:
“In downtown Greenville,
they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs,
except on the bathroom doors,
they didn’t use a lot of paint
so you can still see the words, right there
like a ghost standing in front
still keeping you out.”
When Woodson wrote about her father, who was not in her life for much of it, her words resonated deep within:
“So many years have passed since we last saw
our father, his absence
like a bubble in my older brother’s life,
that pops again and again
into a whole lot of tiny bubbles
of memory.”
Yes. I have known that bubble. The bubble never disappears, just forms into smaller bubbles that pop and make even more. So you’re still filled with the missing of him, but maybe it’s gotten a little easier. Or maybe just harder to ignore.
In another passage, Woodson shared what she used to do to bargain with the powers that be when she was a child:
“Each evening we wait for the first light
of the last fireflies, catch them in jars
then let them go again. As though we understand
their need for freedom.
as though our silent prayers to stay in Greenville
will be answered if
we do what we know is right.”
When you’re a child, you feel like everything you do is sort of a bargain. Do what you’re told, so you can get this one wish. Do the right thing, so your dad will come home. It was beautifully sad.
In this passage, Woodson’s grandmother has just admonished her grandchildren for not liking the neighbor girls because they get to play on a swings longer than Woodson and her siblings do. Her grandmother tells them their “hearts are bigger than that.”
“But our hearts aren’t bigger than that.
Our hearts are tiny and mad.
If our hearts were hands, they’d hit.
If our hearts were feet, they’d surely kick somebody!”
I laughed a little at this, because it’s such an accurate representation for what a kid feels in a fit of jealousy.
Again, her language in description showed a great mastery of metaphor and mechanics:
“Deep winter and the night air is cold. So still,
it feels like the world goes on forever in the darkness
until you look up and the earth stops
in a ceiling of stars.”
“You don’t need words
on a night like this. Just the warmth
of your grandfather’s arm. Just the silent promise
that the world as we know it
will always be here.”
“The page looks like the day—wrinkled and empty
no longer promising anyone
anything.”
“Darkness like a cape that we wear for hours, curled into it
and back to sleep.”
Woodson also shared about her struggles with reading and writing. She found it easier to tell stories than write them down. She also preferred reading books everyone considered beneath her level to the ones with a whole lot of pages and not many pictures. But a book with pictures was the first time she saw a black child depicted in the pages—and that made her believe that she could do what she felt was in her heart to do—write.
She tells of it in this passage:
“If someone had taken
that book out of my hand
said, You’re too old for this
maybe
I’d never have believed
that someone who looked like me
could be in the pages of the book
that someone who looked like me
had a story.”
Her description of what happens with a story when she begins telling it was fantastic:
“It’s easier to make up stories
than it is to write them down. When I speak,
the words come pouring out of me. The story
wakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair,
crosses one leg over the other, says,
Let me introduce myself. Then just starts going on and on.”
At one point, she speaks about being the younger sister of a brilliant girl. The teachers, she said, waited for her to be brilliant, too.
“Wait for me to stand
before class, easily reading words even high school
students stumble over. And they keep waiting.
and waiting
and waiting
and waiting
Until one day, they walk into the classroom,
almost call me Odel—then stop
remember that I am the other Woodson
and begin searching for brilliance
at another desk.”
At times, Woodson’s poetry showed the true nature of a child, as in this passage about how she asked her mother if she could wear her hair in an Afro, and her mother said no:
“Even though she says no to me,
my mom spends a lot of Saturday morning
in her bedroom mirror,
picking her own hair
into a huge black and beautiful dome.
which
is so completely one hundred percent unfair
but she says, This is the difference between
being a grown-up and being a child. When
she’s not looking, I stick my tongue out
at her.”
The last poem of the book sums up Woodson’s theme: that even if we feel like we’re a mistake, even if we don’t think we have much of value to offer the world, we were planned for a purpose, and we are made to make the world a different place:
“When there are many worlds
you can choose the one
you walk into each day.”
“When there are many worlds, love can wrap itself
around you, say, Don’t cry. Say, you are as good as anyone.
Say, Keep remembering me. And you know, even as the world explodes
around you—that you are loved…
“Each day a new world
Opens itself up to you. And all the worlds you are—
Ohio and Greenville
Woodson and Kirby
Gunnar’s child and Jack’s daughter
Jehovah’s Witness and nonbeliever
listener and writer
Jackie and Jacqueline—
“gather into one world
“called You
“where you decide
“what each world
and each story
and each ending
will finally be.”
What a fantastic way to end a book for kids who are wondering if they really do have worth in this adult world.
I believe this is an important piece of literature in the children’s book world, because Woodson was a woman who grew up during an important time in history that children today will only read about in their history books. But she writes about that time with such honesty and emotion that her readers will not be able to pass over it as “just something that happened in history,” but will remember it was something that happened to actual people. When considering history, it’s easy to feel that distance from the tragedies that took place. But Woodson brings those tragedies front and center, in a gentle way. We need more literature like this in the middle grade genre, and I’m so thankful that Woodson so bravely told her story.
