I’m excited to have my friend and former student, Andrea Lani, here at Motherhood & Words today with a post that addresses this very issue. Welcome, Andrea!

 Facing—and Learning from—an Audience Hostile to Moms

I recently attended my first ten-day residency of a low-residency MFA in creative writing program. Before I went, I was afraid that I would be the lone old lady among a roomful of twenty-two-year-old recent college grads that I would not be able to relate to, but when I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see a wide range of ages among the students. Several of the people I met on the first day were also moms in their 30s and 40s, and right away I felt comfortable among “my people.”

It took me a while longer to notice that among the members of my first four-day workshop group, there was only one other mom, and that most of the others were much younger. It seems the older women I had seen were in creative nonfiction, popular fiction and poetry, while fiction—my genre—tended toward the younger end of the spectrum. This didn’t bother me at all at first; I was enjoying getting to know people from various walks of life with a range of life experiences behind them and the only issue that I thought would arise from my being a mother of three children would be how in the heck would I squeeze 25 hours of writing time in around my job and my kids.

My piece—a short story starring a mother not entirely unlike myself—was workshopped on the last day. The critique went well at first; a number of positive things were said about the writing, and a lot of valuable and valid criticism was leveled at the story’s shortcomings. Then the conversation took a different turn, and three childless young women began to discuss my character. They went on the attack against her parenting choices and skills, her intellect, the validity of her claims of feminism, and, basically, the big gaping void that is her life because she’s spending a day at the lake with her children while her husband is at work.

I walked out of the room feeling as if I’d been kicked in the gut. The character had certain autobiographical elements, so the attack felt personal. But even if she had nothing in common with me, the hostility toward motherhood in general shook me to the core. Motherhood was a major theme in all of my writing—fiction, nonfiction and poetry—in fact, I would venture to say that motherhood had made me, finally, after 30-odd years of dithering, into a writer. And now I was confronted with an audience that questioned not only the validity of my subject, but also my worth as a human because I had children. For the rest of the day, I went through the motions of all of the presentations, readings, and social events but this event played itself over and over in my mind, making me sicker and sicker with each turn.

When I got back to my hotel room that night, I sent Kate an email telling her what happened; I knew she was just the person I needed to seek words of wisdom and comfort from. [Thanks, Andrea!] I woke at four in the morning, this earworm still churning in my brain, and wrote my evaluation for the workshop. I woke again at five and wrote a blog post. By the time I got out of bed an hour later, I was seriously questioning whether to continue with the program. I was angry at those women, and also at myself for letting them hijack my entire MFA experience.

Fortunately, that day was a day off from workshops and presentations. I skipped the scheduled discussions and drove home, where I took a nap, read to my children all afternoon while they tried to burrow into me, and cooked dinner. I found the simple act of chopping vegetables for soup—normally a hectic and draining event—to be soothing and nourishing. In addition to my family’s love that day, I received a wonderfully supportive email from Kate and sympathetic and encouraging comments from my blog readers. I returned to my hotel late that night feeling replenished and determined to start over fresh the next day.

Happily, my second workshop went much, much better. My group was still young, but somehow the personalities clicked as they had not in the first workshop (it should also be noted that my story for the second workshop starred not a mother but a woman facing infertility), I was matched with a great mentor for my first semester (and, no, she’s not a mom, but I’m willing to give her a try anyway) and, finally, on the last day, I met two women in the fiction genre who are older with children.

As for that awful workshop day, while I would much rather it never happened, I learned four valuable lessons from the experience which I think will make me a better writer (and, possibly, a better person) in the long run:

1. Develop my characters. No wonder those women thought my character was a doormat—I had written her flat, while her children were round and robust. The one other mom in the room could relate to her by filling in her curves with her own experience. Those without that experience had nothing to work with, and so felt nothing but contempt. If I want to connect to people through literature, I need to write characters with depth that can elicit empathy in my readers.
2. Take care of myself. One of the first things we learn as new mothers is that if we don’t take care of our own needs, we’re not at our best for others. Somehow this has always been hard for me to put into practice. I went into that workshop after five days of sleeping too little, eating and drinking too much, spending too much time in the company of other people and too little on my own. I was in no shape to react moderately to adversity.
3. Be kind. I went into my second workshop resolved to take extra care in critiquing others’ work, to ensure my comments were fair, tempered and directed at the work, not any element of the writer’s (or her characters’) character.
4. Use them. Oh, yes. I can guarantee there will be a couple of mean, nasty anti-mother characters in a story coming soon.

Andrea Lani is a mom, a writer and public servant living in rural Maine. See her dispatches on all of the above topics at www.remainsofday.blogspot.com.

Thanks so much for your post, Andrea. I love how you were able to turn an unsavory situation into something that will make your writing even stronger. And I also want to say what I’ve said a hundred times: Motherhood literature (by and about mothers) is literary. It is a subject worthy of literature. It can change lives. There, I said it.

Friends, I’m curious how your writing has been reviewed/critiqued/criticized by audiences not friendly to mother writers? How did you feel? What have you done about it?

After four lovely days with D, the girls, and my mom and step-dad up north at my mom’s cabin over New Year’s, we came home to the news that the son of friends had died suddenly. Benjamin was 21 years old. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in May and had just mailed off applications for graduate school in economics. He was just beginning his adult life.

I never met Benjamin, but I feel as though I knew him. We met Ben’s dad, Bob, eight and a half years ago. He came highly recommended as a pediatrician, and prior to Stella’s birth I was going to set up an appointment to meet him, to “check him out” in that overly anxious new-parent way. When I finally called him, Stella was a week old and in an incubator. I explained that she had been born early and was in the NICU.

“At Children’s?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ll come down to meet her tomorrow,” he said.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I can just pop down and see her. It’s only a floor away.”

I didn’t know what I expected him to say, but I hadn’t expected that.

The next morning, a doctor I’d never seen walked up to my sister and me as we sat at Stella’s bedside. He was smiling broadly, and I knew it must be Bob. He shook my hand and then Rachel’s, then he bent down to gaze into the isolette at Stella. “Oh, you guys,” he said, “she’s absolutely beautiful!” He was bursting with gentle good humor, and immediately I fell for him; he was the one, the pediatrician of our dreams.

I met Ben’s mother, Lucinda, separately, without knowing she and Bob were married. (Nor did she know that Bob was our pediatrician.)

Lucinda was in my first writing class for mothers in 2006, and immediately I fell for her, as well. Her prose was quiet and lyrical, her writing about her sons and motherhood and her own childhood thoughtful and probing.

Over the last five and a half years, I’ve had Lucinda in four classes, and this is how I came to know Ben. I’ve known him as a fussy infant, always moving, never resting, never quiet. I’ve known him as a spirited four-year-old, “accidentally” overflowing the bathtub in protest after his younger brother, Sam, was born. I’ve known him as a six-year-old, who, after his mother hesitantly answered his questions about the house alarm, stared out the car window, trying to process what it meant that the world might be a dangerous place.  I’ve known him as a teenager who practiced Mongolian throat-singing, who could hack into computer systems, who hung motherboards on his bedroom wall. I’ve known him as a political young man, an ardent admirer of Paul Wellstone, ready to make a difference in the world. I’ve known him as a reader of all the Russian novelists and Proust. (A better and more thorough reader than I, for sure.)

In this fall’s class, I asked my students to write about what they most admire about their children.  When Lucinda wrote about Benjamin, she described him on the living room couch (he’d been back at home since graduation) surrounded by stacks of books, scouring the Internet, connected to as many information outlets as possible. I can see him there, his brilliant mind at work, making connections, hatching plans, refuting accepted policies.

I have had many students come to me after the loss of a child. They resurrect their children on the page to celebrate and cherish, to not forget. They write into a more nuanced understanding of themselves, of motherhood. Sometimes they find peace. It is heartbreaking, but also beautiful.

Until now, I have never had one of my current or former students lose a child, a child that I already knew and loved, a child they had introduced me to through their essays and memoirs. I feel numb with Lucinda and Bob’s loss, with my own loss.

The funeral and burial were lovely and devastating. Before the funeral, I met a group of friends/students (mostly from that first class in 2006) at a nearby coffee shop. This group has continued to meet monthly since 2006, and they have a bond that is much more intense than most writing groups. It felt like buoy to be with them. And at the funeral it was reassuring to see Bob and Lucinda and Sam surrounded by so many—hundreds of people—who love them and who love Benjamin.

At the shiva on Wednesday night, Lucinda said that she had asked her rabbi what this meant for her manuscript. She has been working on a wonderful memoir that is in part about the isolation of early motherhood and learning to be the mother to Ben that he needed. How does the fact that Ben is now gone change the book, change what it all means, because certainly it does. I don’t know. I don’t know how Lucinda’s book will be different, but I know it will be wonderful no matter what. And as I told her on Wednesday, “We’ll figure it out together.”

Benjamin shouldn’t have died. No parent or brother should have to go through what Bob and Lucinda and Sam are going through.

He will be remembered and he will always be loved. And when Lucinda is ready, I’ll be there to help her write her way through her grief.

Hold tight to those you love this week, and please remember Benjamin.

The girls couldn’t believe it when our neighbors (thank you, Jon and Ami!) brought her over on Christmas morning. She is such a cuddle bug. We are all happily adjusting to life with a dog!

I always appreciated the time I was able to spend reading and writing at the coffee shop or here in my office, but now “appreciation” doesn’t begin to describe how I feel when I’m presented with an hour or two alone at my desk.

My job is going well—really well, in fact. I enjoy the work and my colleagues. But I miss those long hours at the coffee shop. Lately I’ve felt so disconnected from writing, from craft. What if I forget how to write altogether? I know that won’t happen, but the thought did cross my mind. For the last ten years, writing and teaching have occupied the majority of my brain space. I was always thinking of the next sentence, the next essay, the next book, the next presentation.

Now most days those things feel buried deep in my consciousness. I rush to drop off Zoë at school, rush to work, work work work, rush to the store, or to get Stella for piano lessons, or to my mom’s house to get the girls, and then we rush home. And in all the rushing around, it’s difficult to remember the joy of stringing words together to create meaning. It’s difficult to remember that delightful nagging I feel when a piece of writing won’t let me go. It’s difficult to remember how writing changes lives.

But then I get an hour of quiet, and that knowledge and understanding—and joy—begin to bubble to the surface once again. And that’s when I stop and smile at all the clutter, at the piles of books, at the dishes stacked on the stove waiting to be filed into the dishwasher, at our brown yard, strangely bare of snow. And I feel at home. I feel peace.

Peace comes to us in different ways. Perhaps it comes to you on a long run or as you hold one of your children tight in your arms or when you do some small kindness for another person.

Katrina Kenison has a wonderful post on her blog about reclaiming peace in our lives. She writes:

Peace is what we all yearn for, and peace is the gift that we can offer one another – in a word of forgiveness, in a smile, a hug, a kindness done, a gratitude expressed.

Peace is in each of us; sometimes it’s just a matter of being quiet enough to let it bubble to the surface. I hope that each of you finds peace this holiday season, and that it stays with you into the new year.

What does peace look like for you?

I’m looking forward to a few days off in the next couple of weeks to relax with the girls and, shhh, maybe a new dog. (This weekend we took care of the adorable dog that our neighbors are fostering, and we fell in love. Am I crazy? Maybe. But having her in the house actually slowed me down. I spent time just cuddling with her on the couch. It was a little like having a new baby – without the nursing and lack of sleep.) I’ll keep you posted about our possible new addition.

I also wanted to let you know that there are still a few spots open for the 3rd Annual Motherhood & Words Retreat. It is such an incredible weekend. We spend time writing, sharing our writing, discussing challenges with craft, and connecting with other mother writers in the luxury and quiet of Faith’s Lodge.

When: Thursday, February 23 – Sunday, February 26, 2012

Where: Faith’s Lodge, Wisconsin

Faith’s Lodge is located on 80 acres in Northwestern Wisconsin near the town of Webster, less than a two-hour drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, less than one hour from Duluth/Superior, and about four hours from Madison. The mission of Faith’s Lodge is to provide a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or loss of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future.

But you need not have experienced the loss of a child to attend the retreat. The Motherhood & Words Retreat is for all mother writers. (But a portion of the proceeds from the retreat will benefit the children and families served by Faith’s Lodge.)

The Lodge has eight guest suites, and we can accommodate up to 10 people for the retreat. Each guest suite features a private bath, fireplace, balcony/patio, flat screen TV, DVD player, small fridge, and coffee maker. Meals are included.

Cost: $650 for single room, $550 for shared room (separate beds)

To register: Please contact Marquetta Nickols at Faith’s Lodge at 612-825-2073 or marquetta@faithslodge.org to register.

And contact me with questions. I’d love to have you join us!

Part of the problem is that D and I are currently obsessed with Friday Night Lights. (Thanks to friends who wouldn’t hang out with us until we started watching it.) I vaguely remember hearing about this show when it was on network television, but I didn’t pay any attention. Who wants to watch a TV drama about football anyway? But of course it’s not really about football; it’s about people. So D and I get the girls to bed and then we dash to the couch and queue it up, giddy with excitement. We just can’t help it.

Luckily, there are only five seasons, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I am writing, though, a little. The novel, though it will be slow, is there, at the edge of my consciousness. And the main character just sort of hovers around me most of the day. (I like her, so that’s not as annoying as it could be.) I hope that she’s doing some of the work of the book during the week while I’m teaching and working so that on the weekend when I can steal away, it will simply be a matter of transcription. I’ll let you know how that goes. The good news—the news that had me beaming all afternoon yesterday—is that I just received a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, which will allow me to scale back on a few things so I can spend more time writing. Whoop! There is nothing more valuable for writers than time to create, so I am humbled and grateful to SAF.

I apply for as many grants as I can, but usually I don’t get them. That’s just the way it goes. And this is one of those lessons I’ve learned as a writer: My work will get rejected and rejected and rejected, but I need to keep showing up, doing the work—writing and submitting and applying for grants. And if I keep at it and don’t give up, someone just might say yes.

Use Your Words was rejected plenty of times before its acceptance. And even as editors are graciously “passing” on the memoir, I try to keep in mind what my friend Jill says: “You only need one person to say yes.”

This is what popped into my in-box two days ago: Viva Editions’ spring catalogue. They said “yes” to me last spring, and there couldn’t be a more perfect home for Use Your Words.

I will keep pulling in rejections. I know that. But then there will also be weeks like these.

So don’t ever give up. (And apply for a SAF grant next year!) Whoop!

Today, I am thankful for:

• a lazy morning at home with D and the girls
• a four-mile run along the river
• November weather that is sunnier and warmer than ever before
• my job, which is now permanent
• two paid days off from my job
• D
• Stella and Zoe and their laughter, which can lift me from any funk
• our extended family and friends
• all of you who come here to read and share your thoughts about writing and motherhood and life

The hard part of all of this is that I can’t stay home and cuddle and take care of them all day. This is the first time that I’ve had to head out the door to work and leave my sick girls in someone else’s (albeit very capable) hands. But I miss them, and they miss me. Yesterday, Stella said to Grandma, “I just want to be with my mom.”

Go ahead and twist the knife.

Even without sick kids, I know that the current pace of my life is not sustainable. I’m mother and wife on top of working full time and teaching and editing and preparing for a book launch. (O, copyedits, I will get to you soon. I promise!) And then there is the constant pull back to the page, to writing. Most of the time these days I don’t even think about my own writing, but I feel its absence in my life. I feel flat.

I love when I am in the middle of a writing project and I suddenly wake in the middle of the night with an idea. I love the way the rhythm of my gate on a long, slow run opens my mind to a new possibility in a scene or with a character. I love the way the writing continues to happen in my head throughout the day, even when I’m unaware of the work that’s being done. But in order for that kind of magic to happen, I actually need to be writing and writing regularly.

I’ve had an idea for a novel bouncing around in my head since the end of summer, and last week I realized that if I didn’t start actually writing it, I’d lose my passion for the project. Or it would grow stale. Or fizzle out.

So on Friday, I had an hour between work and a reading I was planning to attend. I went to a coffee shop and I pulled out paper and pen and began to write.

I always tell my students that they can accomplish a ton of writing in an hour or two a week. “Just set that time aside.” Well, it’s time I started to take my own advice. Because I’m a different person when I write—I’m filled with a sense of possibility.

I only wrote for 45 minutes on Friday, and the paper is scribbled mess, but it’s a start, and it’s exactly what I needed.

I don’t know when the next hour will appear, but somehow, I know it will.

This is what I’m grateful for right now:

• the crackling racket of running through fallen leaves
• Zoë belting out the Zoë version of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” in the backseat of the car
• Stella and Zoë and their dance parties, during which they intermittently stop dancing and yell “Sisters!”
• my sister’s pregnancy (twins! almost 19 weeks!)
• my copyeditor (I spent a few hours at the coffee shop on Saturday morning going through my manuscript. So. Much. Fun!)
• our health, our health, our health