Do you remember that feeling you got as a kid when a birthday would come and go, or Christmas morning passed in a blur, and suddenly it was all over and you were left feeling a little let down?
It was the post-celebration blues, and they snuck up on you every single time.
The same feeling washes through when you finish writing a book. It’s sort of a day-after, did-that-really-happen kind of feeling that leaves you wringing your hands and wondering what you should do next.
The thing is, there’s still a lot to be done. Just like after a great birthday party, or a memorable Christmas, there is cleaning up to do. A new day dawns, and brings with it a flurry of activity. And yet you find yourself a bit dejected for a few days until the moment finally passes and you can start looking forward to the next celebration.
Wendy and I turned in our manuscript on Tuesday. It’s been an intense couple of weeks as we’ve gone through the book with a fine-tooth comb, pulling out sections that didn’t make sense, or stopped the flow. We’ve done rewrites, and we’ve challenged one another on theological concepts, always pushing each other toward becoming stronger communicators.
We’ve pushed ourselves late into the night, and throughout the day, filling each down moment with editing and sharpening.
And now it’s out of our hands.
Add to the the fact that I turned my novel back into the editor on Sunday night after doing all the rewrites, and you find me here in the corner, feeling like my birthday and Christmas just rolled past me in one giant swoop. I’m a little sad that it’s over.
There’s still so much to be done, obviously, but today I’m simply in that strange aftermath – the waiting period before life kicks back into gear.
Tomorrow my husband celebrates his birthday. He’s had a stressful few months as well, so we’re sneaking away for a few days, just the two of us. We’ll join Matt and Wendy in San Diego, and we’ll celebrate birthdays and finished manuscripts.
And hopefully we’ll sleep, because I’m running on fumes.
I’m not taking my computer with me, and I’m not going to lie – I’ve had a couple of panic attacks today as I’ve thought about leaving it behind. I need to get started on marketing plans, and I need to finish my ebooks. I need to contact people for endorsements, and I have a MOPS talk to prepare.
But if I don’t stop to take a breath, I simply won’t make it to the next goal.
There’s something to be said about stepping back and taking it all in. Just like there’s something to be said about sitting in front of the fireplace the day after Christmas and not diving right into the cleaning and organizing. Memories can’t be made if we don’t stop to digest the moments.
Books won’t be launched if we don’t stop and digest the accomplishment of writing them.
So tomorrow morning, I will drag myself out of bed at O’Dark Thirty (it’s hard to fly from one coast to the other), and I will leave the work behind. It’ll all be waiting for me when I return, no doubt.
I’m going to step away and celebrate the accomplishment of finishing these first steps. This is the time to breathe, to soak it all in, and to not think about what’s next.
So that’s where I’ll be, and that’s what I’ll do. And hopefully I’ll come home relaxed, refreshed, and ready to prepare for the next big celebration. TWO BOOK LAUNCHES!
I hear this question every so often, and my first response is, “Super glamorous. I am practically famous. My office smells of rich mahogany.”
That’s a total lie.
Right now my office smells like a dirty diaper because it sits just outside the baby’s room, and I desperately need to empty the diaper pail. Nobody knows my name (except the twelve of you who consistently still read here – thank you!), and if you call yoga pants, a rumpled t-shirt, unwashed hair, and blood shot eyes glamorous then you’d make at least a portion of that statement true.
My life consists of fitting it all into the cracks of my day. In his book, On Writing, Stephen King shares his writing schedule with his readers. It consists of writing three – four hours every day, allowing him to finish most manuscripts within three months.
That’s almost like my schedule, only the complete opposite. Every morning, I wake up at 5:00 (except when I don’t), and try to make my brain write pretty sentences before coffee. Sometimes I am quite successful. Other times I just scroll through Facebook for an hour, kicking myself for not sleeping longer.
I wonder if Stephen King gets lost in Facebook when he’s procrastinating?
I wonder if his office smells of dirty diaper?
With school beginning this week, I’ve found that those cracks in my day have become a bit more narrow, but at least they’re predictable. With a twenty-minute mid-morning snack break, and an hour for lunch, I’m quite certain that my productivity will skyrocket this school year.
Because we writers love penning our words with the shrill shriek of children in the background. It really helps keep the mental juices flowing in an orderly fashion. My lunch time writing usually goes something like this:
Sit down and stare at the screen.
Try to remember where I was going with that last paragraph. Know in my heart it was probably going to be brilliant, but now it’s gone forever.
Get up and investigate the crash that just came from a bedroom.
Sit down and stare the the screen.
Try to remember what I was thinking about before I got up.
Get up and dig dog food out of the baby’s mouth.
Sit down and stare at the screen.
Try to remember what this book is about.
Get up and yell at the kids to quit fighting gently remind the children to play nice.
Sit down and stare at the screen.
Open Facebook and tell myself it’s research.
When the kids finally fall asleep at night, I usually flop onto the couch longing for nothing more than to shut my brain off and watch a little mindless television. Sure, TBS – I’d love to watch Legally Blonde for the 4 millionth time.
But then I remember that pesky deadline, and all the work that needs to be done in the next twelve months, so I pull out my computer, open up the file and stare at the words, then wait for them to stop swimming around on the screen. When they don’t, I sigh and pull myself up again for a mighty search through the house for my glasses, which magically disappear any time I need them.
When I finally locate the wily spectacles (why were they on the back of the toilet again?!) I set to work. Nighttime is for editing because the brain is too fried to write stories.
Unless those stories are blog posts about what it’s like to be a writer.
If I’m lucky, I crawl back into bed around 10:30, and I pick up a book because good writers must be readers. At 10:42, I fall asleep reading, dropping the book on my face in the process.
That’s my favorite part of this writerly life.
I sleep soundly most night, except for the ones where I see characters and outlines in my head all night long, at which point I toss and turn and clench my jaw until 5:00 rolls around, and I pull myself from bed again.
Only to have forgotten every single thought I’d had through the night.
What’s it like to be a writer?
I get to wear yoga pants, drink endless cups of coffee, and stay home with my kids. Glamorous?
Nah.
But pretty dang cool, nonetheless.
My novel releases this spring, and I can’t wait to share it with you! In the meantime, I’m busy putting together a couple of ebooks to share with my email subscribers, and will hopefully have a little site redesign done sometime this fall. I’d love for you to sign up so I can keep you up to speed on all the exciting things coming down the pike! If you’re interested, just leave me your email address in the little box to the right and click Sign Me Up!
I’m honored to share a post with you today written by my friend, Emily Wierenga. This is a story about her journey home, and it’s packed with beauty as her writing often is.
Emily is a poet, and a writer whom I deeply admire. I’m always awed by those who can string together sentences laced with a poetic glimpse into the world around them. It’s a depth of writing that I don’t possess. Sure, I manage to pen a few singing words here and there on occasion, but then my brain is all “Slow down there, Emily Dickenson! Why don’t you back that train up.”
At which point I am compelled to share such priceless gems as “For realz,” and “I can’t even!” Or my favorite, “Hot dang!”
And so it is that I’m thrilled to share Emily’s poetic prose with you today, and I’d love it if you hopped over to purchase her new book, Making it Home. The time spent reading Emily’s writing is always well spent.
Thank you, Emily, for the gift of your words!
I’m sitting and drinking my tea from the Korean mug, the house breathing around me. I’m reading Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, but for a moment I fold the page, close the cover, lean back and remember Korean days: that tiny square apartment beside the fire station, stamps in our passports and as many countries as possible stitched onto my backpack.
I had studied the Lonely Planet guidebook and learned the language on tape in the months before Trent and I moved to Wonju, a city nestled in the mountains east of Seoul, and we taught English there, for a year, traveling to Japan and China and Thailand on the weekends, and now, I study cookbooks. I plan homeschool, and some days, like today, I stare out the window with mugs of tea and wonder how I got here.
And even as our house slumbers, it’s alive—with peanut-butter kisses on the windows and red wine stains on the carpet.
Home is Uncle John’s bathroom reader beside the toilet, the smell of a strawberry rhubarb candle a lady from church brought me when I miscarried. I light it every time I have a shower. It smells like mercy.
Home is the pile of books, Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer and Winnie the Pooh, thrown from Kasher’s bed, because he always reads them before he goes to sleep and then he habitually tosses them. It’s the bear’s ear stuck in his mouth which he sucks. It’s the infant newness that still clings to his two-year-old cheek during sleep.
It’s the long lashes of Aiden, the green bunny in his arms and the flashlight by his hand. It’s his footy pajamas with the feet cut off because he’s three and a half and broken through the toes.
Beside me, a rough-hewn bookshelf made by Trenton out of barn boards. There’s the coffee table made from the same boards, the children’s chairs—Mickey, Minnie and Dora which are bent out of shape from Aiden and Kasher using them to wrestle.
Home is the pile of dirty clothes by Trenton’s side of the bed, the stack of books on either of our bedside tables—mine all literary and dark or devotional, and his historical or fantastical and us meeting in the middle under a feather down. It is the smell of baby powder fabric softener.
Home is me climbing the stairs to the kitchen, the crab apples we picked still piled in a bucket and the others, turning into apple leather in the oven. Bowls of apple juice waiting to be frozen on the counter and it’s Trenton emerging from the office and seeing me. Saying, “It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” when really it’s been 20 minutes.
It’s the smell of his skin when he pulls me in.
The house hums like it’s in love: the dryer’s tenor, the dishwasher’s soprano, and the refrigerator with a low bass.
My tea is gone. The sun setting fast as it does in the fall, like it can’t wait to tuck behind fleecy clouds and I hear my boys rising. Whimpering in their bunk-beds and Trent’s calling them. “Aiden, Kasher, come to Daddy,” and their feet on the rungs of the ladder and the carpet, running, pushing open our bedroom door and jumping into bed.
I place my mug in the sink and find my way down, past the creaky stairs, into that room, and the boys squeal when they see me and we all hold each other in the light of the afternoon.
And home is making me.
This excerpt is taken from Emily Wierenga’s new memoir (the sequel to ATLAS GIRL),Making It Home: Finding My Way to Peace, Identity and Purpose.Order HERE.
What does it mean to be a woman and to make a home? Does it mean homeschooling children or going to the office every day? Cooking gourmet meals and making Pinterest-worthy home décor? In Making It Home: Finding My Way to Peace, Identity, and Purpose, author and blogger Emily Wierenga takes readers on an unconventional journey through marriage, miscarriage, foster parenting and the daily struggle of longing to be known, inviting them into a quest for identity in the midst of life’s daily interruptions. Get your copy HERE. Proceeds benefit Emily’s non-profit, The Lulu Tree.
Get FREE downloadable chapters from Making It Home HERE.
Sign up for the FREE Making It Home webcast featuring Liz Curtis Higgs, Holley Gerth, Jennifer Dukes Lee and Jo Ann Fore (with Emily Wierenga as host), 8 pm CT on September 10, 2015, HERE. Once you sign up you’ll be automatically entered for a giveaway of each of the author’s books!
Emily T. Wierenga is an award-winning journalist, columnist, artist, author, founder of The Lulu Tree and blogger at www.emilywierenga.com. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Relevant, Charisma, Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, Dayspring’s (in)courage and Focus on the Family. She is the author of six books including the travel memoir Atlas Girl and speaks regularly about her journey with anorexia. She lives in Alberta, Canada, with her husband, Trenton, and their children. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com. Find her on Twitter or Facebook.
It’s really dark right now. I’m wrapped in a blanket, because we like to keep the air set at Arctic Tundra during the nighttime hours, and I desperately long for a cup of coffee, but the coffee pot is loud, so I’m forcing myself to wait until a more reasonable time so that I don’t wake sleeping children.
Because waking a child before she’s ready is akin to waking a sleeping bear – you just don’t do it.
I really wish I was still in my bed. I love my bed. It’s comfortable, soft, warm, and I don’t spend enough time there. But I pulled myself from the covers this morning long before the sun peeked over the horizon because this is my when.
Fitting me-time into our busy days is a challenge, especially as we near the end of summer. I desperately want to be present during these last few days, but I also desperately want to escape, because end of summer brings extra drama.
They are tired of one another, and of me. And I am, quite frankly, tired of them. Days have fallen into one long battle as I war against wanting to let them just sit in front of the TV and do nothing, and forcing them to play outside because they’re turning into little zombies.
This is generally the time of year when I convince myself that hours of screen time is actually good for them. Those hours of the day spent on Minecraft, FIFA World Cup, MLB Baseball for Play Station, and all the movies and TV shows they’re watching are molding and shaping them into the beautiful minds that will lead our future. Boom!
I am a good mom.
Despite these obvious parenting successes I’m having, I am trying to engage and be fully in the moment, but there’s also work to be done, and the work is my breathing space. If I don’t tap into it now and again, I get antsy, frustrated even. So I have to find the when in order to engage the part of my brain, and my soul, that needs these breathing moments of solitude.
This is a common feeling for all mothers. Especially this time of year. Whether moms work inside or outside the home, we all long for that breathing space – the place where we can disengage from the motherly work, and reengage with the parts of ourselves that were there before children.
I think back to three years ago, at the height of my blogging “career,” and I wonder what kind of crack I was smoking that allowed me to blog every single day. How did I do that?! Where did I find that time?
Then I remember that the kids were younger, we didn’t have a fourth baby, I wasn’t under contract to write two books, my husband didn’t travel weekly, and life was a little less complicated. There was some natural breathing room in our daily routine, which has since been siphoned off steadily until you find me now.
Huddled under a blanket while the sun laughs at me from beneath the horizon.
Even as I type these words, I hear the baby making her wake up sounds. Intermittent cries with a little babbling mixed in assaults the reverie of this silent morning, and remind me that this is the nature of this season of my life. It’s noisy, and it’s hectic. As soon as little feet hit the floor it’s 90-nothing until the sun sets back down again.
So I sneak the solitude in when I can, and I do the things that fill me with joy. Books, writing, blogging. A little here, a little there. And somehow it’s working.
Wendy and I are now refining our joint book, the messages slowly coming together to form a beautiful, cohesive encouragement to moms like us – artistic moms who are clawing their way to the art in the cracks of their day.
I’m getting at least one blog a week up. That feels like a monumental win these days!
It’s not perfect, this system of mine. But this isn’t the season of life to strive for perfection. If the kids are dressed and fed, then I consider it a good day.
And by dressed and fed, I mean they have clothes on (Oh, those shorts are way too small for you? Just..whatever), and they’ve eaten food (Cold, leftover pizza for breakfast? Just…whatever).
How are you doing, moms? How do you fit in your when? And are you kids eating genuine meals, or are you just pretending that pretzels dipped in ranch is an actual lunch like me?
I’ve heard that phrase over and over since I announced that I was having not one, but two books published next year. And homeschooling on top of that. And my reply is always the same.
Me neither!
(And then I secretly wonder if I should have said Me either, because now that I’m all I’M A WRITER WITH BOOKS COMING OUT, I feel like I should edit every word that comes from my mouth. It’s a very difficult place to be, inside my head.)
But it’s the truth – I don’t know how I’m doing it all. Although I can say with certainty, I am not doing it all well most of the time. And I’m okay with that.
My house is messy, and my kids haven’t eaten what you might call nutritionally well rounded meals every day. Some of that is just summertime. I can’t be expected to keep up with all of their dietary needs three meals a day, every day when they’re home all the time with zero semblance of routine.
I just can’t.
And my house isn’t clean. It’s not a disaster. A little here and there every day means that the house is functional…but it wouldn’t pass Mary Poppins’ white glove test, either.
I can’t seem to find time to blog these days, and I really do miss it. But life, you know? It’s busy and full, and seriously my brain is in constant motion as I think about all the things I need to do to launch two books in the next twelve months.
I’m finishing writing one, while anticipating the edits for another. I’m formulating marketing plans, contest ideas, making connections and partnerships, preparing for a minor site redesign, and even tossing around writing a couple of ebooks to give away for free.
Because, you know – there’s too much down time in my days.
When I have a minute to sit still, I go through homeschool curriculum, and I’m familiarizing myself with the books and their formats. I have our first two weeks of lesson plans almost all filled out, and I’m wrapping my mind around how each day will operate when we officially start.
And in between all of that, I’m trying not to miss my kids. These days are just so hectic. Even if I wasn’t doing all of these other things on the side, though, not missing my kid’s summer days is a tough order. Because honestly, they don’t really want to sit around and hang out with me.
They want to be with friends and play games. They’re going to camp, and they’re swimming, and I’m happy they’re having so much fun. I don’t feel like I’m missing it. I’m sort of watching it from the periphery, and that’s okay.
So I have a survival plan in place, and somehow it’s all working. There are, however, a couple of pieces missing in my ultimate plan of survival. And these missing pieces are causing some problems.
Sleep and exercise. I’m tired, and sluggish. Both things need to improve, or I really won’t survive these next twelve months, no matter how airtight my plan may be. So I’m working on that.
This is all the challenge of motherhood and working. I’m not complaining – not by a long shot. My days are sweet and full, and for the most part I am enjoying them, even if I’m slightly overwhelmed. And truth be told, I know this won’t last long. These hectic days will be gone in an instant, and maybe I’ll miss them.
Or maybe I won’t.
I don’t really know, nor do I much care because today I have enough to think about. So I’m not going to worry if I’m doing too much or too little. I’m just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and crossing things off my never ending to-do list.
[Tweet “Because motherhood is a glory crash of the crazy and the mundane all rolled up like a snowball.”]
I’m just here for the ride.
Tell me, moms. How are you all doing with the crazy hectic fatigue of it all? How do you work sleeping, eating well, and exercise into your crazy packed days? I’m open to suggestions for how to make this all work.
I’m knee deep – nay, NECK DEEP – in all of the writing these days. Every spare moment is divvied up into sizable, manageable chunks, and there is little wiggle room for anything else.
Related: My house is a disaster, and the laundry threatens to eat me in my sleep.
Wendy and I are down to two months before we have to turn in our manuscript to the publisher, which seems like a long time, but feels so terribly short given all that still needs to be done. Every once in awhile, though, I’m able to sit back and assess where we are, and it’s good. First drafts of every chapter are written. Now we polish and refine and rewrite.
We will survive.
My novel is in the publisher’s hands, we’re finalizing the title (I can’t WAIT to share it with you), and I should be receiving sample covers soon. This is crazy exciting stuff!
But this also means that the need to begin a big marketing push is looming, and I’m overwhelmed. With all of it.
And then there’s the blogging. I miss blogging. I miss telling stories. Like how my children are slowly and systematically destroying the house this summer, one curtain rod, broken window screen, and shattered dish (or salt shaker) at a time. If it wasn’t so frustrating, I’d be impressed with their clumsiness.
But alas, there is little time to blog. I wake early and work. I get the baby down for a nap and work. Afternoons are for being with my kids, making sure they know I still love them (JUST STOP BREAKING MY STUFF). Then I put them to bed and I work.
I have managed to still carve out a bit of time to read, though. I’m a fiction girl, so diving into story is a necessity for my survival. I sneak reading in at night before I fall asleep. It soothes me, and it releases all the tension in my brain from a long day of walking the line between motherhood and writing.
So without further ado, I give you What I’m Reading
Photo courtesy of Tammy Labuda Photography
The following are books I’m either reading right now, or I’ve recently finished. I tend to have three or four books going at a time. It’s a sickness.
Big Little Lies: I am really enjoying this book. It’s breezy, and doesn’t require too much effort to read. The story is clever, the plot engaging, and it’s just quirky and humorous enough to keep me grinning. This is one I’ll get through quickly.
A Long Walk to Water: This was a quick read. I read it because Sloan needed to read it for school, so I thought I’d go through it first. It’s a great story, albeit a sad one. It’s been fun to watch him get into the book. In general, reading isn’t his favorite, but he’s enjoyed this book.
Schindler’s List: I bought a copy of this book when I went to Dachau. It’s actually quite good, but it’s heavy, and so I’m making my way through it slowly. Today, with the rain pouring outside, the sky all weepy and grey, is the perfect day for curling up with this excellently written book.
A Mountain of Crumbs: Elena Gorokhova might be my new favorite author. I finished her book, Russian Tattoo, in no time and I loved every bit of it. The book was engaging, funny, poignant, smart, and fascinating. A Mountain of Crumbs is actually a precursor to Russian Tattoo. I read them out of order. It doesn’t matter, though. That’s how good a writer Gorokhova is.
Russka: When I signed on with Kregel publications for my novel, the publisher recommended I pick up this book. He thought it would be something I enjoyed, and he was right. This book is a fascinating merging of history and fiction, spanning 1,800 years of Russian history and culture. This is one I really want to dive into when time frees up.
Books that are sitting on my shelf, waiting patiently to be read:
The Grace Effect: I really can’t wait to read this story of love and redemption from historian and Christian apologist Larry Taunton. He shares the lessons he learned through the adoption of his Ukrainian daughter, Sasha, when she was ten, and the false promises of an atheistic society.
Wild in the Hollow: Don’t you just love that title? That alone is the reason I bought this book. Reason number two lies in the fact that I’ve always loved Amber Haines writing. I’m looking forward to this book.
Making it Home: Emily Wierenga is a poet, her writing all clear and smooth like water trickling off the top of a mountain. I can’t wait for the release of her new memoir. In fact, I’m so excited about it that I’ll be hosting Emily here in the near future to share personally with all of you!
So those are a few of my current reads. Tell me some of yours!
