Finding The Words As A #WRITERMOM

Finding the words as a #writermom

By Casey Dembowski

#writermom

It’s one of my favorite hashtags and something I’m always quick to point out—I’m a writer mom. I’ve been a writer nearly my whole life, but being a writer mom is something different. The two roles are often at odds with each other. If I’m a writer, I feel like I’m not spending enough time with my daughter; if I’m a mom, I’m not dedicated enough to my craft. 

But in the last five years, I’ve had a whirlwind journey as both a mom and writer—I had a miscarriage and a baby; I signed with an agent, didn’t sell a book, wrote three more novels, sold a book, parted ways with my agent, and saw my first book baby into the world. 

In the five years before that, I barely wrote—I was a writer who didn’t write. I had graduated with my MFA. I started a career, fell in love, moved across state lines. I had all the time in the world to be a writer—to go to conferences and take retreats and dedicate my time to the writing life—and yet I was paralyzed. I used to call it post-MFA angst. The words could no longer be my focus; writing was no longer my escape. But then a week before my thirtieth birthday, I miscarried. And in battling that loss, I found the words that had escaped me for so long. 

Now, when I worry that there’s not enough time to be a writer and mom or wonder if my career would be in a different place if I had more time or more financial freedom to do all the writing things or if getting up at five in the morning to write is worth it, I remember the four things below. I remind myself of these things every day, sometimes more than once a day because my journey is my journey. It’s no one else’s. And if I changed even one thing about it, what else might I have changed along the way?

Comparison is the thief of joy

In December 2019, I did a decade-end round up. They can be so heart wrenching sometimes. But the 2010s was a decade of change for me as I mentioned earlier. Some of my friends have landed big publishing deals, some have agents and haven’t sold, some are still querying, and some are still writing. But at the end of the day, we’re all staring at that blinking cursor. It doesn’t help to wonder why this person got the deal or that person got the agent. Comparing your path—however bent and meandering it may be—to others will only lead to doubts. 

If you write a page a day, you’ll have a book in less than a year

It’s easy to get lost in the idea that you aren’t doing enough to finish your novel. Other writers are up at five in the morning or writing until the middle of the night or taking solo retreats. But a writer mom can only do so much. I write, at most, an hour a day. Usually when my husband is putting our daughter to bed. Sometimes I’ll sneak in some writing on a lunch break or take an afternoon off work to finish edits. Sometimes I don’t write for a day or even a week, and that’s okay, too. I’ve learned to fit writing in when and however I can—in between all the other aspects of my life. I remind myself that if I write, on average, 220 words a day, I’ll have an 80,000 word novel by the end of the year. I bet you write more than 220 words a day on social media.

Your children watching you work towards your dreams is a good thing

Children learn from watching us. They mimic what we do and say. They aspire when we aspire. Since the pandemic, whenever I put my daughter down for her nap, she knows that I’m going to do work. I say “Have a good nap” and she says “Have a good work, Mommy.” Just by watching me work toward my dreams, she’s learning that it’s more than okay to have her own dreams—big, small, or otherwise. Currently, her dreams are to be a Disney princess and own a unicorn, but dreams are dreams. And whatever hers end up being, I hope that by seeing my journey to publication so early in her life, she finds the resolve to fight for her own as she gets older. 

Your experiences only make your writing better

How many times have you heard the mantra, write what you know? The more experiences you have the more rounded your characters can be. Each of my characters has pieces of myself in them and of the people around me. Getting married, owning a house, moving to a different state, becoming a mom—all of these experiences added to my character development process. They were pieces of my characters I could draw on that before I wouldn’t have understood. The more you experience, the more empathy your characters can have for those in the world you build around them and the more your readers will empathize with them in turn. 

I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember. I’ve had periods where I wrote every day, practically all day. I spent two years studying in an intensive writing program. I stared at a blank page for five years. Each iteration of “writer” has been an important part of my journey, but none has been as significant as #writermom. Being a writer mom gave me purpose as I shifted into motherhood. And this last year when everything else in our world was so very uncertain, it provided the anchor I needed to weather the storm. 

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Casey Dembowski loves to write stories that focus on the intricacies of relationships–whether they be romantic, familial, or friendship. Her novels focus on the inner workings of women and how everything in their lives leads them to exactly where they are, whether they like it or not.

The first story Casey remembers writing was in the second grade, though it wasn’t until she turned twelve that she started carrying a battered composition notebook everywhere she went. Since then, there hasn’t been a time when she isn’t writing.

Casey lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter, and their two cats. She has an MFA in Fiction from Adelphi University and currently works in corporate marketing communications. In her (limited) spare time, she enjoys reading, baking, and watching her favorite television shows on repeat.

Find out more about Casey on her website https://caseydembowski.com/

Follow her on Twitter @casey_dembowski

WHEN WE’RE THIRTY, Casey Dembowski

Two friends. One pact. The performance of their lives.

Hannah Abbott is stuck in a dead-end relationship and at a job she loves but that barely pays the bills. The four walls of her tiny New York City apartment have never seemed so small. She’s barely toasted her thirtieth birthday when her old college friend Will knocks on her door with an unexpected proposal.

Will Thorne never forgot the marriage pact he made with Hannah, but he also never imagined he’d be the one to initiate it. One ex-fiancée and an almost-career-ending mistake later, however, he finds himself outside Hannah’s door, on bended knee, to collect on their graduation-night pinky promise.

With both of their futures at stake, Hannah and Will take a leap of faith. Now, all they have to do is convince their friends and family that they’re madly in love. As long as they follow the list of rules they’ve drafted, everything should go smoothly. Except Will has never been good with rules, and Hannah can’t stop overthinking the sleeping arrangements. Turning thirty has never been so promising.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing