On Writing (More)

When I became pregnant with my son, my words dried up. Once he was born, I was too exhausted, busy, frazzled, any one of a million emotions moms go through, to be able to put pen to paper. I didn't even have any ideas anymore.

By the time he was in late elementary school, the occasional poem would pop up and even less frequently, I would have time to stop what I was doing and write it down or type it. Sometimes I posted them to my blog.

In the last year or so, something has happened. Those dried up words, the ones I despaired of ever coming back to the cracked earth that my creative wordy mind had turned into, started raining down again.

Last fall, I wrote a novel. Right now I'm polishing it up to see if I can get it published. Since then, I have composed dozens of poems, either posted to this site or used in my classroom. Yes, I share my personal writings with my students (within reason, of course). A while back, I started a second novel, this one in the Young Adult genre.

Now, I had intended to sit down and work on either editing the old novel or adding to the new one tonight. But when I sat down at my computer and started typing, something else came out entirely - almost fully formed, coming so fast my fingers and mind can't keep up, my body is desperate for sleep but the story won't let me go. It will be my third novel begun in almost two years, the second novel in just a few weeks.

I hope this drenching rain of words keeps up. I hope I don't get bogged down with having too many stories going at once. I hope I don't fizzle out and all the stories wind up sounding the same. The topics addressed are very different, but still, it could happen if I'm not careful.

But even if they do wind up sounding the same, even if I never get a single word published anyone, I am so grateful this has happened. I never realized how dead I had felt inside, how much I felt I had submerged myself into the persona of "caretaker", until the dam burst and my words poured forth again. Is this something that happens to other people? Do you get so bogged down in the day to day "stuff" that the person you are just gets buried underneath the minutia that comprises your life? Have you experienced this sudden release - where suddenly, out of nowhere, the "you" that you used to know comes back to you? Please, drop me a note in the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Words

I used to have words. Words that would pour out of me faster than I could write them down. Words that would paint new worlds, drag readers under and weave a spell 'round all who read them. Words that gave me a reason to be.

Then I made new life, and the words stopped. The words stopped speaking to me of people and places who existed only in my mind and heart. I didn't have time to spend on words; all my time was for my son.

And now my son grows older, but I still don't have any words. They tease me, flicker through my mind as my last waking thoughts, only to disappear the next morning. My words are gone, my voice is stilled, and I wonder who I am.