A love letter to the moms who write

If your desk looks like this...this one is for you.

I’ve had one of those weeks when all my creative inspiration clashed with real life.

Parents were reaching out for playdates, parties, and get-togethers. Friends were reaching out for playdates, parties, and get-togethers. Family came into town. Work picked up a bit.

And creative ideas were flowing, with nowhere to go.

Time and time again, I've seen and heard about the tortured writer with writer's block—the one who has no ideas and sits in front of a blank screen or an empty piece of paper with nothing. Nothing to say, nowhere to take their words, no story to tell.

But for moms who write, that's not always the case. In fact, it rarely is.

Instead, we get the opposite end of the coin. We have all the inspiration and ideas, but no time to write them down. We make bullet points and short blurbs about love stories and half-finished worlds. We stuff poems scrawled on receipts, sticky notes, and old homework in our desks, hoping to get back to them later—or at least remember we were the ones who wrote them when we find them.

We have brains brimming with creative energy we were blessed with, only for it to make us feel like we might implode from the lack of release. The flip side is that we lose the idea. Or we wait too long to do the thing and convince ourselves it floated away to another creative who had the time to catch it. It simply fades, and we have to grieve what could have been.

This is a reality all too familiar for moms who write. Writers who are not rich with time (or money, usually) and yet are wealthy with ideas. 

It's defeating at times to hear young writers—or, I'm sorry to do this, male writers who aren't the primary caregivers, the default parent, the milk supply, or simply the comfort person in this season of life—voice their frustration about having too much time and no ideas. Too many quiet moments alone. Too many bouts of writer's block. Too many walks through small towns, along the beach, or in the woods without an idea to show for it.

No hate, just envy.

It's not your fault. It's simply your current season. And it's one of those grass-is-always-greener moments from a drowning creative mother, looking through the peanut-butter-smeared window we sometimes find ourselves behind.

I know writer's block is nothing to scoff at. One day, I hope to experience it. I know loneliness and the feeling that life has gone still are nothing to scoff at, either. That one, I've felt many times.

Why does the creative universe do this? Why does it seem to bless the busiest among us with endless ideas while those with time stare at blank pages?

Is it that when we become mothers, we become more in tune with everything around us? Are we a beacon for ideas because we're so desperate to reclaim pieces of our identity? Do we accidentally catch ideas we're not quite ready for—ideas meant for minds that have the time to nurture them?

Maybe.

But I don't like to think that way.

I like to believe the universe challenges us, our passion, and our dreams. It wants to know if we'll prove we want this as badly as we say we do. If we believe in these stories and ideas enough to keep chasing them, even when life keeps pulling us away.

We created life, and now the creative universe whispers, "Now... can you create a world?"

That thought warms my heart.

It keeps that little flame lit. It encourages me to keep grabbing those ideas, slapping them onto paper, and forcing myself to look at them every day—even if I can only work toward them a little at a time.

Whether you have a baby on your hip, a toddler on your shoulders, a bigger kid dropping crumbs into your lap from their hundredth snack of the day, or a preteen desperately trying to discover who they are, you can still create another world.

I say this as my toddler stands beside me—completely naked—refusing to let her father help today. Not because she doesn't love Daddy, and not because he's unavailable. He's standing there holding her favorite pajamas, trying every trick he can think of to coax her away from Mommy.

It's because I'm writing. I'm typing, completely focused. Apparently, that looks far more important than putting on pajamas.

My advice? From a woman with four kids under twelve, all in different phases of life: don't compare yourself to writers who are younger than you. Don't compare yourself to writers with more time, more space, fewer obligations, or fewer little people depending on them. 

Hell, don't compare yourself at all.

Everyone has their own challenges. Everyone is living their own season of life, and nothing is ever as perfect as it seems. Pretty pictures, dream vacations, and publishing ten books in a year never tell the whole story.

We lived that life before. Remember? Maybe not as glamorous as these upcoming generations, but we did.

We were the women with fewer obligations, responsible only for ourselves, with nothing but our futures stretched out ahead of us. Motherhood is simply the future we chose. It comes with a few more hurdles to get our words down onto clean paper these days, but it’s worth every one of them.

Keep writing. Keep dreaming. 

Until next time,