Faith, Our Personal Best and the Work We Do…

The hardest think about raising children is developing patience. Writing stories and novels also takes time. And faith.

Both processes ask that we give our personal best at all times. And yet to do both jobs well mothers, parents and writers need room to breath and reflect.

But I want to stay with mothers, because so often when we write we, and the world does not take seriously what we do, particularly if we choose to operate primarily as a mother, and a writer second.

Those of us who choose to place our writing second do so because I think on some level we know that we will never reach our personal best at crafting stories until we have nurtured our children to an adequate point in their and our lives.

This is not the only way to come to writing. This is our way.

And so we make sacrifices, not unlike with other professional women who, while clearly educated, and dedicated, need time with our children first.

This need may flow out of a relationship with our own mothers who were unable to be with us during our childhood in a way that both they and we as their children desired.

They did not love us any less. But circumstances prevented them from devoting themselves more fully to child rearing.

Our need to be a full-time mother who writes part time may stand rooted in a less than positive relationship with our mother, father or parents.

Perhaps we lost them either in death or were unable to emotionally connect with them in a satisfying way

We need to do that not only with our spouse or partner, but also with our children. This is our process of healing.

Whatever the need or calling towards motherhood or parenting that asks to be first in our life, we must answer it, most particularly and especially if we are writers.

Artists, no matter how skilled, talented or developed at our work and with our medium, approach our calling to create steeped in a need to heal, if only to give thanks for those who saw us over and into the wondrous land of bringing into physical manifestation that which first sprouts from the soil of our imagination.

Author and attorney, Scott Turow studied and then taught writing at Stanford University from 1970-1975. He entered Harvard Law School in 1975 and graduated in 1978. His first book, Presumed Innocent was published in 1987 after he had worked as a U.S. Attorney.

As expected, the major dilemmas of Turow’s novels center on courtroom dramas.

Working as a mother, either full-time in the home, or part time at home and work or part time working from home is no less important to us, to our families, to who we are, the individuals we are becoming and the writer that is developing within us.

Whatever our world, the activities through which we engage with others provide fertile fodder for the writing that we will do when the universe says we are ready.

Some write early in life. Others like myself start late. I saw my first book published when I was 46.

Not bad for a wife of 28 years and mother of three whose ages range from 23 years to 10-years-old.

What’s the story of your life and writing?

How is the work you do shaping the stories you will later craft?

How patient are you with yourself?