Welcome

May is Motherhood Memoir Month, a time to celebrate motherhood by writing about it. Or maybe you don’t feel like celebrating- write about that. Maybe you’d just like to read some tall but true tales until you get inspired, or yarns for commiseration. You’re welcome to read mine. With six kids, I’ve got some tales to tell.

Writing is cathartic- it helps us figure out what we think, making abstract thoughts into black and white words on the page. Words are editable. When you move them around and change them, or even erase them, you may find you’ve changed or defined how you feel. Writing helps create new paths, or new ways to walk down old ones.

Writing is a gift- one you can give yourself and another person. During this Mother’s Day month, consider writing out stories from your past, present, or future even, then share them with your mother or child as a gift. Or look at some of the more difficult memories more closely, uncovering the real issues through the act of writing, maybe uncovering a sense of resolution or closure.

I’m here as a writing mentor, hoping to inspire and be inspired. I taught writing at two colleges and one university. Now I just write with this blog as my classroom/lab where we can collaborate and commiserate and rejoice together over this sojourn of motherhood. We’re in this together.

I’m the mother of three sons and three daughters, spread across a quarter century. One day while writing I realized I was experiencing all phases of motherhood simultaneously- I had one daughter married (pregnant with my first grandchild), one son in college, one in high school and another in junior high, a daughter in elementary, and a baby heading quickly toward toddlerhood. Then I became a grandmother. All this with the same hub. It’s been a wild family ride, providing lots of fodder.

I’ll provide encouragements and prompts. May is a busy month, so my goal is 300 words per day, 3-5 days per week (much less than NaNoWriMo which sets your goal at about 1700 words per day every day for the month of November). Think of it as a 30 Day Challenge (you can take Mother’s Day off for sure)- way easier than most of those diets.

Set a realistic, but slightly challenging goal. How many words would you like to write each day? Most writing goals are words per day and days per week. But you can decide what works best for you. Maybe it’s 15 minutes a day. Or 10. Or 30. Or hours. Maybe it’s a story you want to get down, start to finish. Whatever it is, put it out there. Let’s do this together, spur each other on to good works and faithfulness. Post your goal in the comment- accountability helps us all.