Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

Today I’m trying to sort out the spare room for my sister’s arrival this weekend - interspersed with helping the Pibler move dry pasta twirls from one saucepan to another, and fending off his regular requests for water to make a mess with. None of that might sound very exciting (although seeing my sister after 3 years apart certainly is!), but actually I’m feeling inspired about life at the moment.

Doing the First Steps in Fiction course, as I’d hoped,  is doing wonders for my motivation at actually writing, and getting my work out there. My first attempt at writing an exactly-75-word paragraph for Paragraph Planet has been accepted, and will appear on their site on 27th February.

I have worked out a synopsis of my proposed linked short story collection (and submitted it to my tutor) and started writing the first story today during the Pibler’s nap. It’s amazing how productive I can be with very little time, these days, since I have no choice but to get right down to work! No procrastinating (well, only sometimes!)

This week’s session was very helpful, looking at different characters’ voices within a fiction story. I enjoyed thinking about how a teenager, elderly person or Scottish person might speak, and bringing that to life. It’s surprising how I hold so much of this knowledge inside but need a course and a facilitator to bring it out! The course is giving me tools that are very simple but I doubt I’d have thought of them myself.

I also am researching children’s book publishers to submit a revised version of a children’s story (to go with illustrations) I wrote a couple of years ago, and got good feedback on from writing friends. Now that I’m regularly immersed in the world of children’s books, and have a better understanding of what they’re about, I feel more confident about it, though I know it’s a fiercely competitive market. 

One of the companies I’m attracted to is Barefoot Books, whose vibrant, colourful and culturally varied books I’m very impressed by. I did once submit the much longer version of my children’s book (which is essentially a fantasy with broadly ecological themes) to them and was rejected, but I think they are still the closest fit to what I want to do. I need to study more of their full-length books, as obviously the Pibler is still mainly at the board books stage.

I love making lists, and today made a rather inspiring one of my career ideas for the next few years. Very long-range, and completely open to change, but gives me a sense of direction and purpose which helps me on days when I seem swamped in a caretaker and house-keeper role.  One of my goals is to pursue some form of study that will enable me to teach creative writing and perhaps other topics - whether that will be a PGE or a Creative Writing Masters, I don’t yet know. But it’s good to have options. My world is widening out again, and as the Pibler grows I feel I am able to re-start the growth in some of the areas of my life that have been ‘on hold’. I feel more and more that what I’m doing and being as a mother is only adding to, and complementing, my experience in other areas.