If you have known me for a few years, you’ll have heard me talk about how staying home with my kids and finding creative ways to continue writing and finishing my stories has been an immense challenge. But the kids haven’t been mere obstacles to my professional goals. They’ve changed me as a person–and for the better in many ways! Through changes to my heart and my thoughts, my stories have shifted, too.
I wrote an article for the Writers of the Future blog on the subject of being a mother and a writer, and I wanted to share it with you here!
In that article is also a link to my second podcast interview on the Writers of the Future podcast. I have to say, I was feeling pretty optimistically happy during this second interview and you’ll hear me laugh several times (I think I sounded extremely serious on my first WOTF podcast interview, comparatively). Here is the link to my newest podcast interview. I also talk about figuring out space for my writing in the early years of motherhood (which may be helpful to other mama writers out there!).
Hope you enjoy these! Oh! And in case you missed it, it’s awards eligibility season and I’m sharing the stories I wrote this year that are eligible to be nominated.
Being a parent with creative ambitions is tough stuff. If you’re struggling with a particular question or endeavor as you create your art in the same life-season that you are also wrangling your kids, I’d love to hear about it! I haven’t surmounted everything, but I’d like to think I’ve overcome a few things in the past six years since my entry into the craziness of parenthood and I’m willing to share my notes!
Liz Busby
12 Dec 2019Hi Elise! I read your story in Writers of the Future and knew I had to look you up. I’m also a writing mama living in the Seattle area. I mostly gave up writing during my years of being a stay-at-home mom of four; it took me a long time to make piece with that decision. Pretty much the only thing I wrote in the last ten years was an essay about that decision (https://irreantum.associationmormonletters.org/blueberry-bushes-and-the-bare-essentials-of-being/). Now that my youngest is finally in preschool, I’m clinging on to that precious writing time and trying to figure out how to be both the writer I was before and the mother I am now. Keep fighting the good fight!
Elise
13 Jan 2020Hello Liz! Thank you so much for this note! It’s such a struggle when caught between two very good things! What an exciting new season you have as your kids are getting older and you are finding you get a little more time to yourself! Good luck to you and the new stories that have the time to be told! 🙂