Today, my husband watched my son (one of many times he has done this for me) while I finished the final draft of my first novel. And, amazingly, at the end of my writing session, I decided: It’s done. It’s ready.

One caveat: I am having someone else look at it for small things and copy edits, but other than that, I’m calling it. No more tweaking, people! Hands off!

This has been about two years in the making, and during the second year I experienced a lot of changes in my life, including having a precious baby boy! One of my biggest fears about becoming a mother was losing myself and losing my writing. And so, I have clung to it tooth and nail, making sure that my writing didn’t become lost.

And I had a lot of help.

My husband watches my son often so I can write. My mom even watched him once so I could get some time in. I’ve learned to use naps and even, in the newborn stages, nursing time as writing time. Because I have had to be so intentional about making writing a priority, I think it has instilled good writing habits in me. My husband even made the comment once that I actually seem to write more now that I am a mom.

I don’t think this is far from the truth. While I was still on maternity leave, I entered and got first place in a creative nonfiction contest. In October, when my son got to celebrate his first Halloween, I got to celebrate my publication in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a fiction article I wrote during a lunch break at work.

My son has done nothing but enrich my life in a million ways since he has come into the world. He’s made me more efficient and compassionate and appreciative of so many things that I used to take for granted. And the restrictions on my time have bolstered my resolve to hold on to the things that are important to me.

Not long ago, I attended a writer’s event where someone made a comment to the effect of “So, I guess you’ll be writing again in about 18 years, huh?” and I was horrified at the implication. Who would give up their passion just because they had a child? What kind of example does that give to a child when their mother obsesses only over them and has no interests of her own?

For me, the things that used to be important to me are still important to me. The thing that has changed is that my son is the most important thing.

“No, I’m still writing,” I said to the dubious writer, and went on to give a few of the ways I found time to write.

Is my house kind of dirty a lot of the time? Sure. Does my husband cook a lot of (okay all of) the time? Yep. But am I happy and following my dreams? Yes.

Anyway, all this is to say that it has been a big year. And because of that, I haven’t written in this blog often, because I couldn’t justify spending time writing a blog post when I could be using that precious time to work on my book.

But I finished the book :).

Here’s the final shakedown of the numbers for this bad boy. For those friends who have been asking me about it every now and then, maybe you will understand now why it has taken so long, because, I’ve realized, I almost have enough pages/words for two books I think.

This puppy is big. It’s so big that during the last few months, Microsoft Word has had enough of my antics and is “not responding” for a few seconds every time I try to save it. Pssh. It’ll forgive me soon, I know.

Thanks for reading. Here’s to finding an agent, pursuing the next steps, and getting to work on other writing projects!

 

 

A common piece of writing advice when it comes to characterization is to show rather than tell. But how do we do that? I have created an example scenario with one possible way to do this for your characters. This is by no means the only way to characterize someone, but this is one possible tool.

I was editing my novel when I took a quick trip for a coffee refill. I opened the fridge for the almond milk that I use as a creamer (See One Poo at a Time if you want to know why I use that instead of regular milk).

While doing this, I really looked at my fridge for the first time in a while. I thought about how it might look to another person, maybe somebody who didn’t know me. It inspired this character-building exercise.

Let’s look at what’s on my fridge together. I’m going to use this as an exercise to show how something as simple as this can explain so much about a character.

Things on my fridge:

• Family photos
• A Medela magnet that shows how long breast milk stays unspoiled at different temperatures
• A magnet showing the poison control phone number
• A stack of unfilled recall slips for various baby products (3+)
• Two scanned sheets of baby food recipes from a book

I’m going to pretend that I’m not talking about myself and make up some explanations for what these things could say about me (These guesses may or may not be true!).

The family photos show that I’m a woman with a family and a child.

Secondly the Medela magnet shows that I’m breastfeeding. If you were writing me as a book character, maybe you’d think I value natural things and that I’m a little bit of a “crunchy” mom.

The poison control number posted on the fridge probably shows that I’m safety-minded. The unfilled recall slips say the same thing, except they could say something else as well, since they haven’t been filled out or sent off yet.

The fact that I’ve collected the 3+ recall registration slips means that I value safety, at least in theory. However, why aren’t they filled out by now?

Maybe I’m not very organized or I’m just busy. Maybe I hate filling out paperwork, even the easy kind. Maybe I’m extremely forgetful. Maybe I’m not actually all that worried about recalls, but I feel like I should turn them in anyway, so they sit on the fridge for weeks with good intentions but no follow-through. Maybe I’m just really overwhelmed with tasks (many new moms are!).

The baby food recipes can also tell you a few things, especially combined with the Medela magnet that tells you I’m breastfeeding. I may be an overachiever mom. The person who put these things up wants to breastfeed and make her baby’s food from scratch, which suggests she cares a lot about the way things are done in regard to her child.

However, where it might get interesting is in the speculation. Seeing the stack of unfilled forms, would we wonder if this character actually makes all of her baby’s food? Does she have time for that? Or is it just another good intention?

Now let’s put the character in a situation. Let’s say someone the character knows tries to give her baby a taste of a new type of store-bought baby food while the character isn’t around and without her permission. She finds out about it later. How do you think the character might react, just based on what you have seen here?

She would probably freak out a little, right? Based on what we know about the character being very concerned about her son’s feeding and safety?

Are you starting to see how these simple things, like the state of one’s fridge, can give insight to a character?

Here are some other ideas of things you can look for and describe in a character’s home to help characterize them. Describe the things:

• Hung on the walls
• Saved to the desktop of their computer (also overall cleanliness, order, or disorder)
• On their desk (objects, style, cleanliness, order, disorder)
• On their coffee table – also could be any other furniture around the house (objects on, tidiness, dust or shine, books)
• In the medicine cabinet – self-explanatory!
• In/on their front or back lawn, if the character has one.
• Said in their  bumper stickers (I realized when writing this that I missed a valuable opportunity to include this for some of my book characters!)

To try this exercise out, just choose one of these areas and start describing it with one of your characters in mind.

Have fun, and if you complete the exercise feel free to share your lists in the comments!

 

 

It’s been a while. Hey there. Here’s some updates on life and writing.

Life

I’ve cut out soy (in addition to the milk I already cut out) from my diet on the suggestion of my son’s doctor. If you’re just now hearing about my food elimination adventure, see my previous post about milk protein intolerance. Eliminating soy seemed daunting at first, but it turned out to be much easier to manage than I thought, mostly because I had already cut out so many food choices by eliminating milk that we only had to refine our shopping list and substitute a few items. It also doesn’t hurt that I have the most supportive spouse ever. He’s been crucial in helping me stay on the nursing path.

So much for being the woman who, when people asked, “Are you going to do formula or breastfeed?” replied, “I think I’ll try nursing, but if it’s too much work I won’t make myself crazy over it.” How carefree. How blasé! How…not how things went at all.

It was too much work. It hurt at first. It made me crazy. And, two eliminated food allergens later, I’m sticking with it. Just more proof that pre-mom me had no idea what mom-me was going to be like.

I like mom-me. She’s stronger than I realized. She also has a huge thing about germs but, hey, we all have things to work on.

Writing

It was a pretty good month for submitting stuff. I’ve been working diligently on some poetry and short stories. I’ve submitted to four different publications this month.

I’ve been working on a third round of edit for my novel, which I had taken a short break from after the birth of my son. Those I know who haven’t written books are always acting surprised that I’m still editing it. Those of you who are writers probably know…3 rounds of edit is probably on the low side ;). I’m taking it slow and steady. There’s no rush and I want the final product to be something worthwhile. I’m also allowing myself to devote some time to shorter and newer projects so that I don’t get burnt out. I do, however have a weekly chapter goal that I’m trying to stick to.

If you’ve read this entire post, thank you! There isn’t a lot of how-to information here to enrich you or anything particularly witty. Just me waving my hand through this blog and saying, “Hey. I’m still around.” Are you still around? Leave me a comment :).

My son has entered the world! I have a beautiful, healthy, sweet baby boy. We’re so happy and grateful for our new addition to our family! I’ve been taking a break from blogging to adjust to mommyhood.

Even though it’s been quiet here on the blog, I’ve still been writing. I’m currently 10,000 words deep into a short story that I started the week before my due date. I’m almost finished with the first draft and I hope to have it done in the next few days. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s a sci-fi story (I suppose I’m on a bit of a sci-fi kick) that will contain my first attempt at a real twist ending. How have I done this, you ask? Well, let’s just say I’m a lot better at multitasking now. And it’s completely possible to type while nursing.

Before I go I want to give a little plug for a contest I’m entering, and there’s still a day left to enter! It closes at the end of tomorrow. If you want to participate, it’s a contest for any 200-word excerpt written by you. It can be published previously or not. Join me and give it a whirl if you want! You can enter here.