So, I started a newsletter, adding to my fulltime parenting of six-year-old triplets, who (besides doing the fulltime first-grade-friend-drama thing) play club soccer, tennis, piano, and basketball, swim on a swim team, and dance hip-hop. I also play tennis on two teams, am married to a consultant, care for a dog and two guinea pigs, manage celiac disease, have friends in a million different groups, clean, cook, garden, freelance edit, belong to a writing group, and—wait for it—write (psycho thrillers, literary short stories, blog posts, essays, and now this newsletter) FOR FUN.
Where do you fit it all in, you ask? Well, sometimes I don’t, and that’s reality. I can’t sit down every day to write thousands of words. I write when I can: on my phone while in line at the grocery store (yes, I have done this, and once I got yelled at by the lady behind me, who probably thought I was on Twitter), on paper while sitting on a child’s bed at bedtime, or on my laptop in the living room while kids host a dance party with friends all around me. Parenting is hectic and stressful and time-consuming, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In this (weekly? like everything, we will see) newsletter, I want to share all the challenges that come with parenting as a writer, including where I find my brain daily. Not going to lie, sometimes I don’t find it. Sometimes, I’ve been glutened and am in a fog. Often, I’ve been up two or three times in the night with scared or sick children, and I’m so tired I can’t see straight. Then, I write a bunch of junk, or about my challenges, or I don’t write at all. I’ve learned to go with the flow, to let my type-A, must-succeed personality get tossed in the wash with the socks every once in a while.
I promise, though, I’ll try to save the good (and scary) stuff for you.
Embracing the Chaos...
Love this and live your life
Love this, and you, Jody!!!