The New Mom Question: How Long Before I Can Write Again?

By Vanessa Lillie www.vanessalillie.com 

My mother said to expect a burst of energy before going into labor. With me, she’d been throwing a baby shower for a friend. With my brother, she was picking pecans when her water broke. The burst of energy before I went into labor with my son is not something I remember (it’s been four years!). But, I have Gmail, so there’s a record of how I spent this surge. I sent 10 query emails (after over 100 rejections) to agents for my soon-to-be-shoved-under-the-bed book.  

There are things I remember like getting an agent’s pass in the hospital about ten hours after my son was born. I also remember, after pushing him for three hours without an epidural, holding this wiggly newborn on my chest, and in my exhausted euphoria thinking, This is what it’ll feel like to get a book deal. 

With these signs that being a writer was important, even vital, to my daily life, I still went into motherhood thinking I’d take a year off from writing and be okay. That story I told myself is still largely what’s in my mind about my publishing journey. Here it is:

I worked on two books for 10 years, had my son, took a year off, and wrote, Little Voices, the book that would become my debut thriller. 

Isn’t that neat and tidy? No way you believe that though, right? The woman who is thinking about publishing her book moments after her son is born is not giving up so easy. 

Is that even the right word? Give-up? 

I see a lot of new moms on Twitter wondering when they will have the time and space to write again. I try to be encouraging when I see these threads. Every word is a victory when your time and mental energy are so diverted. But when you’re in the thick of a dozen diapers a day and fearing the wail of a newborn like a detonating bomb, it’s tough to feel victorious about anything.   

Looking back, I see that I’m not myself if I’m not writing. Or, I’m a version of myself who isn’t connected to the purpose she most wants to live. So a cranky person, basically, constantly doubting her place in the universe. Just great at parties, especially with a baby in tow. 

I didn’t write for the first couple months. I didn’t sleep much either. My son would only close his eyes when he was ON me. For his naps, I started wearing him in a baby wrap, walking the tree-lined Blackstone Boulevard in my Providence, Rhode Island neighborhood. 

I would feel my son’s warmth, the rise and fall of his breath against my own chest, like a larva in a cocoon. A story of a new mom began to form, but I told myself I wasn’t ready. 

Up and down the pathway, I whispered (prayed?) this will get better. He’ll sleep soon (he did not). I will find myself again (I did, but not yet). Back and forth I walked, tying to exhaust the need to write. 

Weeks passed, then months, and the longing for my writer-self shifted from a niggle to a full throb. I ignored who I was (a writer) because I couldn’t imagine how it fit with who I had to be (a mom). These felt like separate people, too big to both be held inside me. 

But at six months, I couldn’t stop myself anymore. The fresh idea of the new mother also walking up and down the pathway was forcing me to return to writing. Most days, I could only jot a few lines in the notes App on my phone. Or, type a few paragraphs after my son was asleep (very temporarily) and many of my ideas had flitted away. Yes, these were baby steps, but it was closer to the version of myself I had to find again. 

I put my son in daycare at 15 months. Even then, it was only one day a week, and I spent those first few watching him on the daycare’s video monitor App. So if you’re keeping track, I was paying a lot of money to watch my son on a tiny camera and cry because I missed him and also dreaded picking him up and not having time to write anymore. Again, great at parties. 

But it didn’t stay that way. I’d only spend half the time staring at him on the App. The other half, I started plotting this new “postpartum mom solving murder” idea. Then, I experienced a new burst of energy. The kind of drive and focus that comes with only having a few hours to be my writer-self before mom-self subsumes. 

I also harnessed the energy of National Novel Writing Month. With two daycare days a week, and evenings when I could, I had 60,000 words and was able to type THE END. It was a hot mess of a draft, but I was baby’s-first-steps proud. There were so many moments I thought I’d never write again. But I had, and I knew finally, I could keep writing even as a mom.  

Motherhood gave me a new energy and the kind of focus I’d never had before. No matter how many times I doubted myself and my new role as writer / mother, it was this new form that would achieve my publication dream.  

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Debut author Vanessa Lillie had 15 years of marketing and communications experience before she decided to devote more time to her own stories and online writing course addiction. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and is currently working on her next suspense novel.

LITTLE VOICES

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