The writer-parent life can feel like trying to do ballet on a broken ankle in a bog.
We must marshal creativity, time, and funds like any other writer, all while feeding hungry mouths, cleaning up bodily goo, and pretending to be a tree. Or a squirrel. Or Maleficent.
But if we’re not going to quit writing—and since the hope and prayer is we’re parents for life—what other choice is there but to try our best to do both?
Read on for inspiration and tips on how we can survive (and thrive!) as writer-parents.
Dispatches from the Potty Training Trenches
Hold onto your panties, writer-parents. Because I’ve been swimming in a world of excrement lately and thinking a lot about how it relates to writing.
The Power of Place (or, “Céad Míle Fáilte”)
Ireland claims a big chunk of my heart. Admittedly, I’m quite American, but as it is for many Americans, when my Irish ancestors sailed across the Atlantic during the famine, they brought echoes of their country that reverberate today in my DNA.
Or at least I like to think so.
Redefining Sexy
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about motherhood and sexuality. How they inform one another, how they can feel at odds. How mothers can embrace their sexuality in a world that values glittery youth and tight skin—and women who don’t walk around with spit up on their shirts.
How writers and parents can #StandWithUkraine
Here are some ideas for what we as writer-parents can do to help the writers, artists, and families of Ukraine, today and moving forward.
10 ways to more writing time
To write well, we must have time, energy, and the ability to focus—all of which are hard to come by in general, especially as a parent, and most especially as a parent post-2020.
Peas and Carrots
Turns out writing while parenting isn’t easy.
Hell, turns out parenting by itself isn’t easy.