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blogging in my head
I’m sorry I’ve been silent for the last week. I’ve wanted to blog and have actually been thinking about blogging, but it’s been impossible for me to get myself to the computer. Partly, this is because I have a new cold (or maybe it’s the same cold with new life), and all I’ve wanted to…
who rocks the dialogue?
This week, one of my students wanted to talk more about dialogue because she was having trouble writing realistic, moving dialogue in her nonfiction. It’s a common problem, I think, for beginning writers because their instinct is to write dialogue in a vacuum: he said, she said, he said, etc. I want my students to…
nora bella
Now D. and Stella and I all have colds. We’re sick and snotty and coughing—my lungs and throat feel raw—and Stella has a wicked fever. When I was awake coughing from 1:30 to 4 this morning, I seriously considered a big shot of NyQuil. (I have a will of steel, so I was able to…
struggling with structure
No luck on Thanksgiving not gorging myself. In fact, I ate excessively all weekend. And now I have a horrible cold. (Not that these two things are related. I only wanted to point out that I’ve been uncomfortable—in slightly different ways—for many days now. With Sudafed off limits I’d actually go so far to say…
gorging
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We’re doing double-duty, as we always do—first to D.’s sister’s house and then to my mom’s house. It’s a lot of food for one day, and each year I plan to eat only a little bit at D.’s sister’s. Why must I gorge myself when I know…
viable
I am twenty-four weeks pregnant today, which means that I’m carrying a viable fetus. When we were contemplating a second pregnancy, and shortly after I became pregnant, I thought that these weeks—24 to 28—would be the most difficult for me. A baby born earlier than 23 weeks has virtually no chance of survival, but 24-weekers…
mothertalk blog tour: the daring book for girls
In May, I participated in MotherTalk’s blog bonanza for Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys. Now, I hadn’t actually read the book—I’m not a boy and I don’t have a boy, which of course you all know—but I was inspired by MotherTalk’s prompts: recall your own childhoods and describe some of the…
when I'm not writing
I was tagged by kyra at this mom with this writing meme almost a month ago, and I’ve been avoiding doing it. I am supposed to identify five writing strengths and list them here, but I find it so difficult to identify my strengths as a writer when I haven’t actually been writing. Before Stella…
catching up on a meme
Last night I was faced with the task of hemming Stella’s princess dress. (I know. It’s utterly shocking that she has chosen to be a princess for Halloween.) But I couldn’t muster the strength to go down in the basement and get the sewing machine and try to remember how to use it, so I…
persimmon tree
I want to encourage you all to visit Persimmon Tree, a new online literary magazine by older women (their descriptor, not mine). They launched last spring with their first issue featuring fiction by Jane Lazarre and poetry by Ruth Stone. The summer issue featured ten poems by Grace Paley, and the current issue contains Eva’s…
a little relief
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been feeling so, so crabby. I’m living with a number of activity restrictions that, in combination, make me feel crazy. I mean, you take no exercise and no sex and shake that up with no red wine, and how would you feel? It doesn’t help that I’ve been…
on empathy
I’m wondering what would happen if we could—and would—regularly imagine the lives of people, real people in our country and in our world, who live lives beyond our own experience. What would happen to our public policy, and foreign policy, if we didn’t seemingly lack the ability to imagine lives? It’s impossible, it seems, to…