Motherhood and creativity go hand in hand. Even a mathematically/scientifically minded mother will find herself tapping into an inner creativity when her children are born.
You have to be creative to survive those small people, amen?
As we see the boom in blogging, (particularly in niche blogging), it’s a good idea to observe those mothers who have a specific bent toward creativity, and who are boldly living out their art and life in this online explosion of creativity.
The 5 Habits of Successfully Creative Mothers
1.) Joyful Dedication: Creative mothers are dedicated to their creative pursuits. They not only set time aside to accomplish their creative goals, but they actually find joy in this time spent on their crafts. Whether it be sewing, baking, decorating, writing, speaking, acting, photography, or any other creative endeavor, the creative mother finds great joy in the dedicated time spent on her art.
2.) Love of Craft: Creative mothers love what they do as much as they love their children. They live out their art boldly, and confidently share it with the world, not as a means to brag, but because what’s the point in creating something beautiful if you’re not willing to share it?
3.) Embracing a Life of Imbalance: There’s a lot of talk about a little word called “balance.” This word is often directed at mothers as a means to encourage them to remember their number one priorities (the children), and to find a proper amount of time “balance” life and art.
Successful creatives realize that there is no such thing as balance.
You cannot effectively pour yourself into your art and keep the house clean, the laundry done, dinner on the table, and everyone happy. Worthy goals will always require sacrifice, and creative mothers know this too well.
Sometimes, time spent on the art will need to be sacrificed in order to focus on your family.
Other times, you may need to make a different kind of sacrifice (either through hiring child care, ordering take out, ignoring dirty floors and clothes, staying up late or waking up early, etc…) so that you can focus on your art.
The balance is in knowing that your days will not be fully balanced. It’s give and take – ebb and flow. The mothers who are successfully pursuing their creative endeavors understand and embrace this imbalance.
4.) Refusing to Take On Guilt: Motherhood comes with a side of guilt included. Whether or not we choose to ingest this guilt, or push it away, is entirely up to us. The creative mother who decides to spend a little more time one weekend devoting herself to her craft can quickly get derailed and sidetracked if she bows down to guilt.
Guilt tells us we should be more focused on our family than our art.
Guilt tells us our family is suffering because we are being selfish.
Guilt is wrong.
Creative mothers living in successful pursuit of their craft know that it’s just as important for them to focus on their art as it is to focus on their families. Your creativity is a gift, and it’s part of who you are. To deny it would leave you lost and frustrated. This is a building block to embracing the imbalance.
5.) Confidence: Successful, creative mothers are confident in their abilities. This is not a haughty, proud confidence, but a belief that their skills are necessary and worthy to be pursued. They don’t cower in the shadow of comparison, or bow to the altar of sacrificing dreams. They believe in themselves, embrace how they were made, and share their gifts always to the benefit of others (including their families).
Creative friend, you are worthy and you’re good at what you do. As you can see, each of these habits builds on the other, and stacked together, they form a pyramid on which to steady yourself. Above all else, however, it is imperative that you remember that you are a good mother, and you have a creative bent. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive. You can live life creatively with your little ones at your feet, and you can still prioritize your title as mother above your title of creative.
Once upon a time, early mornings were the fuel to my creative soul. In college, you would rarely find me pulling all-nighters. The only time I did that was if there was a certain amount of fun to be had that made sleep seem an unnecessary task.
And by fun, I mean stupidity, because freedom combined with zero parental supervision made things like visiting the David Koresh compound at 1:00 am and allowing myself to be escorted around by a man claiming to be a journalist who knew where underground passages were still hidden, and showed us bullet holes in the sides of vans SEEMED LIKE AN EXCELLENT IDEA!
Only a handful of times did I pull an all-nighter to accomplish school work. Even then, I knew that when the sun went down at night, so did my brain. (Again, see the aforementioned stupidity that ruled many of my college late nights).
I was the girl who got up in the early hours of the morning, before the sun rose, and tiptoed into the library to study, or write a paper, or to simply read a book. The stillness of the mornings stimulated my mind, and gave me the fuel I needed to get through my daily classes. By my senior year of college, I was well into my English Professional Writing degree, which meant that I had at least one or two papers due every single day.
Most of those words were typed before the sun peeked above the horizon.
Even then, I knew how I worked best. It’s not much different for me today, though I admit that dragging myself from bed in the early mornings is harder than it once was. In college, I had the benefit of knowing I could lay around in the afternoons. Now I know that from 2:00-9:00, I will need to be on my game. I can’t afford to be exhausted.
But I do know when I am my creative best, and when the situation dictates that I tap into that inner creativity, I push myself out of the warm cocoon of my bed while the rest of the world sleeps.
There are so many different ways in which we creatives can tap into the best parts of ourselves. That’s the beauty of living life as a creative:
We don’t have to fit a mold.
As creatives we have an immense amount of freedom to live life as we were designed, each with a unique set of gifts that cannot be molded into a boxed set of rules. Some work better at night, whittling away the slumbering hours behind desks, easels, and sewing machine. Some, like me, feel the ideas most vivid in the mornings, after just enough sleep has given the brain a chance to rejuvenate.
Some creatives work best to music, while others need absolute silence. Some need a structured environment, others need the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop or book store.
The life of a creative cannot be dictated by too much structure, because once life feels predictable, the creative juices quit flowing.
There is one thing, however, that will stifle and kill any creative spirit. This one thing is insidious in nature, often creeping in when we don’t even expect it.
The death of creativity lies firmly in comparison.
When you begin to compare your gift to her gift, your structured way of working to hers, you will very slowly choke out your own creativity. You are unique.Your method of working is unique. Your talent is unique. Don’t give in to the beast of comparison that whispers softly, “You’re not good enough. Her talent is bigger. Her platform is better. Her skill is more beautiful. Her method of working is more productive.”
As soon as you start ingesting these lies, your creativity will fade.
The creative life cannot be cut into cookie-cutter shapes. It is beautiful because it is unique. Embrace your creativity, and your method for working. Don’t fall prey to the cruelty of comparison. If it means you have to stay away from Pinterest, from blogs, from certain groups or activities, do so. You are uniquely creative, and your gifts are yours alone.
Guard them and share them in the way that lets you uniquely shine.
Several times in the last few weeks, this graphic has shown up in my Facebook feed.
The first time I saw this, my heart leapt. It fit perfectly into a piece of the message that my friend Wendy and I are sharing in the book we’re writing, so I filed it away as a potential quote to put in the book.
As the graphic continued to appear in my feed, I finally decided to look up this quote so that I could properly site where C.S. Lewis had written or said it. That’s when I hit a little snag.
I don’t think this quote came from C.S. Lewis.
I have searched every way I can think to come up with a credible source for the context in which one of the greatest authors in history might have offered this nugget of wisdom, and the best I can come up with are cutesy little printables like the one above on Pinterest and Etsy. What’s more, I’ve found the same quote written and attributed to another man, a Dr. John Trainer.
So who said this?
As much as I would love to say it came from C.S. Lewis, I really don’t think that it did. That quote, while beautiful, does not really fit the style of writing or speaking that you so often attribute to Lewis, and the fact that there is zero reference as to where the quote came from gives me reason enough to pause.
But well done Dr. Trainer for saying something so profound that it got pegged as a C.S. Lewis quote. If Dr. Trainer even said it at all…
It’s easy to get swept up in the pretty of the internet, particularly Pinterest and Etsy, but we have to be careful the messages we portray, and the false inspiration we attribute to past leaders and well-known figures. I think this quote by Abraham Lincoln says it best:
Happy Thursday, everyone! Here’s to the final few days leading into the weekend. May they be full of wisdom, free from distraction, and just funny enough to keep us sane.
I didn’t get to decorate a girly nursery for Tia. We never really expected to have a girl, what with the generational pattern of Stuart men only producing boys and all. And since we didn’t find out her gender ahead of time, I operated under the assumption that she would be a boy.
We had a boy name picked out, and I had washed all of our boy clothes and put them in the drawers, so certain that we were going to bring home another little man.
To say we were shocked in the delivery room is putting it mildly.
The best I could do after she was born was buy some girly bedding, but other than that, I didn’t attempt to girlify the nursery, because I knew we weren’t done having kids and I figured we wouldn’t strike the X-Chromosome gold twice.
Can I just tell you how much fun I’ve had putting this little girl’s nursery together?! The amount of cuteness that accompanies decorating a girl nursery is hard to put into words. And the funny things is, I don’t even like to decorate! It gives me hives. Thankfully, I have friends who like to decorate, and who aren’t intimidated by Pinterest. Those friends helped me pull together a nursery that I have come to love.
The aqua paired with the coral makes me ridiculously happy. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve decided next year I’m going to do Tia’s room in similar colors because every time she walks in, she lights up as well. What is it about these colors that makes our girl hearts swoon?!
One of my favorite touches in the room is the bird cage hanging in the corner. My friend Tiffany sent me a picture on Pinterest and all but ordered me to find and hang a bird cage. I mentioned that I don’t enjoy decorating, right? So the idea of hanging a bird cage was a bit intimidating. But when I saw this cage hanging in an antique shop last week, I couldn’t resist. I bought it.
My husband is utterly baffled by this choice in decorating. His exact words were, “Hanging a bird cage without a bird in it is like buying a car without an engine. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve gotten too liberal in your decorating.”
Given that this statement comes from the same man who doesn’t believe in buying clothes from Target, I took his comment with a grain of salt and moved forward with my liberal decorating.
One of my other favorite little touches was finally getting to hang these two drawings. Three years ago, right after we moved to Florida, I had the opportunity to travel to Hollywood for the Red Carpet showing of The Lion King in 3D. While on that trip, we got to meet two of the Disney illustrators, Mark Henn (Supervising Illustrator of most of the Disney Princesses, and of Simba from The Lion King) and Tony Bankroft (Pumbaa’s Supervising Illustrator). Each of the bloggers on that trip went home with unique sketches of Simba and Pumbaa drawn by these talented illustrators.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to hang them ever since!
The room is, at this point, completely done. I don’t know that I’m going to hang anything else on the walls except for one more sign that we will get after she’s born. I like having some open space because it makes the room feel bigger and brighter and cleaner.
I am fairly stocked up on diapers at this point, and the teeny little dresses hanging in the closet?
I die.
So at this point, the only thing we have left to add to this baby room is…
I did a little counting last week and realized that we are down to days until baby girl arrives. It kind of freaked me out a little. In 3-4 weeks, she will be here.
Here.
In my arms.
And I will be able to breathe again, to tie my shoes, reach down and pick something up off the floor without feeling like I might die, and comfortably sit in a chair without feeling like a stuffed turkey.
Somebody say amen!
Last week, my mom sent me a text: “Would you like to get away for a night? I can get you a hotel room right on the beach for cheap if you think you’d be interested.”
It’s like she doesn’t know me at all. OF COURSE I’M INTERESTED!
I called Lee and asked if he’d mind, and he didn’t mind at all. It may have something to do with the wild, crazy, I’mGonnaLoseIt look I’ve had in my eye for the last several weeks. Not sure. At any rate, he gave his blessing, mom made the reservation, and today I sat poolside with a sweet tea, the sound the the ocean crashing in, and all I could think was “Man, I can’t wait to start writing again.”
For me, getting away is always a catalyst for creativity. While some people like to unplug completely when they get away, I find myself more and more itchy to get back to the keyboard. It’s as though my fingertips were just waiting for my brain to freaking catch up.
A few hours of sunshine this afternoon left me feeling relaxed and clear-headed. A sunset stroll on the beach will add to that, as will a full night’s sleep and the facial that my mom (bless her sweet soul) set up for me tomorrow morning.
I can’t wait to get back to creating, to preparing for baby, to being with my family. It’s amazing what 24 hours away can do for one’s soul. It’s not something I get to do often, but when I do I make sure to relish every moment. The quiet, still moments away when life affords me the time to think. Just me and my thoughts, and few seagulls thrown in for good measure.
Dear creative friends – can I urge you to take some time to get away? You may not have the opportunity to leave for days at a time, but even a few hours alone, away from the hustle of every day life, can awaken your creative soul. Go to where your mind can be freed from the confines of constant decision making, and let yourself drift.
And when the creativity strikes, relish the moment. Soak it in. Abandon yourself to it, then go back home to your family refreshed, renewed and rejuvenated.
This is the joy of living the life of a creative. It’s the ebb and flow of our days, the stolen moments when dreaming means relaxing, which leads to dreaming and creating. And the loving our families when we go back home.
Last October, I participated in The Nester’s 31 Day Challenge: Pick a topic, and dive deep into that topic for 31 days. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide what topic I could focus on for 31 days. How could I come up with a post every day for a month on one particular subject?
This became an exercise in discipline for me, as well as a personal challenge I wanted to complete. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to write about the one thing I felt I knew best:
Writing
I was so very nervous to dive into that series of posts, but there was something deep inside that wanted to prove that I did know this profession into which I’ve chosen to pour myself. A lack of confidence held me back for far too long, so it was time to embrace with confidence that which I knew.
I managed to pull off 30 posts in those 31 days, and with each post I wrote, I felt an increasing sense of confidence in who God made me to be. I remembered the dark nights as a child, pouring my heart into journal after journal. I remembered the poems and songs I scratched out on notebook paper, the stories and devotionals I penned when I had a little time to myself.
I remembered the day a professor pulled me aside in college and told me that he had submitted an essay I’d written into a local competition and it won. “Why are you a theater major?” he asked. “You should be a writing major.”
I remembered and I embraced, and those 30 posts changed the entire course of where I was headed.
I knew it was time to move on from my blog. As much as I loved that space, and the fun that I had there, it was time to expand. Those 30 days gave me the confidence to take the next steps toward launching this current site.
I wrote that series of blog posts for myself, but something happened that I did not plan.
The posts were read, and read again, then shared and read some more. Every day I received notification from Pinterest that these posts were being pinned, and a thought struck me:
Maybe I have information that would benefit others. Maybe I actually do know what I’m talking about.
For the past three months, I have work feverishly to pull those posts together and combine them in a more concise and comprehensive manner. I added to the information I originally shared, shaped up what I’d previously written, and pulled together enough material to put it together in one easy-to-read guide.
Today, 30 Days to Becoming a Writer officially hits the Amazon marketplace. Putting this together and publishing it as an e-book only added to my growth and learning as a writer. This was my first official experience with self-publication and, as expected, I made a few mistakes. I learned as I went, though, and I am now so proud of how the book has turned out.
30 Days to Becoming a Writer is a book for people like me – people who love to write, but are unsure if they have what it takes to turn their hobby into a career. This is a book meant to give confidence. If you have the words inside you, and the the desire to see them shared, then my prayer is you’ll find the tools you need in this e-book to make your dream a reality.
I’m here to be your cheerleader. You can do this.You have everything it takes to call yourself a writer and, ultimately, an author.
If you’re interested in helping me promote the book and get the word out, please feel free to share it with your social media channels. You can help by sharing the images in this post, or this one. You can also share any or all of these images on Pinterest, by posting to Facebook and Twitter, or, if you feel led, by posting to your blog.
Thank you to so many of you who have cheered me on in this journey. Without my tribe of people rallying behind me, I never would have gotten this finished.
Blessings to you all this beautiful Monday morning, and Happy Writing!
