Launching into the Writing Unknown
Documenting my writing efforts and creating in public.
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My first “book” was called The Adventures of Cuddles the Cat. It was about a white kitten that became stuck in a tree, was afraid, then rescued. I was five years old and my finished product closely resembled a book that I owned, rewritten in my own words, with my own pictures, and maybe one small detail of the story changed from the original. I have been writing ever since.
Stories floated around in my head for years, but I was never able to flesh out a cohesive compilation of plot, characters, and voice. My teenage years of angst brought about a considerable amount of questionable poetry. I scrubbed my way through dozens of journals. Graduated from college, found a “real” job in the fintech industry, and never gave a serious thought to writing as I entered adulthood.
In 2009, my first son was born. Three weeks into maternity leave, I found myself bored. I had an abnormally well-behaved baby, who slept perfectly and hardly cried. I started a blog, documenting the details of being a young mother in my mid-20s. From the funny to the mundane, I captured it all. 2012 brought another baby boy and I kept blogging. Call me the modern Samuel Pepys, writing for posterity, or as a way to keep distant family and friends up-to-date on our happenings; I continued to maintain my blog, writing every few days.
Writing changed forever when my daughter, Nelle, was stillborn in September of 2015. I was broken, devastated, and writing became a necessity in a way that I had never before experienced. I wrote to capture, wrangle, and process my pain. Less than six months later, I lost another baby girl, Iris. This time I shattered. And I kept writing.
Now more than two years have passed. I started a second blog, focusing only on grief after pregnancy loss and how it continues to affect everyday life, Musings Out Loud. I have been trying to channel my writing into a book. The content is there: the organization is not. Editing the short pieces of a moment, captured in a blog post, into longer narratives and chapters is a challenge. But I am determined to work through it. This is somehow wedged into my days of a full-time job; a house full with a husband, three kids, and cat; continuing to write in…
