Guest blogger, Diana Whitney
What makes a writer? Is it the ability to publish, reach an audience, and even generate income from your words? Is it sitting down at your desk every day for two hours, no matter what—a routine my college Creative Writing professor urged us to adopt?
In my starry-eyed youth, I read with anxious fascination the work habits of various famous poets—how Mary Oliver took a nature walk with a notebook every morning before retiring to her desk, how Stanley Kunitz wrote in the darkest hours of the night because he needed only four hours of sleep.
Now that I’m a mother of two, I’m not interested in such stories. When I was pregnant with my second, I surrendered to The Baby Cave and turned my sacred writing study into a playroom filled with bunnies, fairies, crayons, princesses and other kid-mess. This was both a practical and a symbolic decision, reflecting my life’s priorities.
Sometimes I mourn for a Room of My Own, maybe a private garden shack or romantic writer’s cabin separate from the barely-controlled chaos of our household. I think of Virginia Woolf, who was child-free and had not only a writing room, but a live-in cook and a housekeeper to meet her needs while she worked. But I won’t indulge in such fantasies or excuses. I know well that it takes time, commitment and drive to write, more than any actual space. Lucille Clifton, mother of six, said she scribbled notes for her luminous poems on scrap paper when necessary.
I have vacillated between the two poles of discipline and neglect when it comes to my writing. I have spent years in silence, without producing anything of worth. One of my teachers, the prolific poet and novelist Laura Kasischke, told me that the hallmark of a dedicated writer was not how often or how much she could write in flush times, but if she could return to writing after a difficult interruption.
Motherhood was such an interruption for me. I was either pregnant or lactating for nearly six years and found all my creative energy channeled straight into my babies. I managed to squeak out a couple of mommy poems, which I’ll keep for posterity but won’t include in any potential manuscript.
Poetry became a luxury I decided I couldn’t afford. If I had two free hours away from my girls, I’d choose to go to yoga class rather than write poems. These are the kind of choices that, in hindsight, define who we are. For a few months I did hack work for ten cents a word, producing web content about cosmetology and barbering for a company in Reno, Nevada. It was mind-numbing work, and I much preferred teaching yoga.
The best thing to happen to my writing life was a deadline. Specifically, a bi-weekly deadline for the parenting column I started to publish in two Vermont newspapers when my children were one and three. At first I labored over every column, planning each topic weeks in advance, taking copious notes, editing meticulously. Now I can churn out 900 words at my Tuesday night writing Salon (while enjoying a civilized glass of wine and hors-d’oeuvres with likeminded adults). I’ll spend an hour editing the piece the next day, and email it off to my editors. Voila.
My column and blog got me out of the serious, striving nature of poetry and the tormenting question of whether I was a Poet. These things aren’t my identity and don’t pay much, but they’re fun and freeing and a record of my mothering experience. Someday when I’m an old lady I may sit in a quiet cabin and write poems about my garden again. Right now, I have to go write another Spilt Milk.
Diana Whitney is a yoga teacher, writer, and mother of two in Brattleboro, Vermont. She’s working with a friend on a playful book about yoga and writing. She blogs at www.spiltmilkvt.com
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