Raising Maine

Here I am!

I’m right here. See me?

In answer to Abundant Blessings sweet blog post wondering where I am and what I am up to, I have to admit I am not sipping lattes in Italian cafes or snarfing chocolate bon bons while I compose in the tub.

If only writing a book was that glamorous!

In answer to the questions do I miss you guys, and do I ever think of you or read your blog posts, yes, yes, yes.

I miss you more than you can possibly know. Is it sort of nuts to be in love with a virtual community? Is it less than real to wonder how Kim's yoga teacher training is going, someone I have never met, but whose words have touched my life?

One of the hardest things I have ever done was walk away from Raising Maine. My reasoning was sound enough if you factor in that I don’t feel like I deserve anything that makes me even a little bit happy (thus the whole bad mother business). You also have to figure that I am terribly self-critical, and enjoying being a member of such a vital mothering community, of course, had to mean that I must be avoiding other less enjoyable and more lonely writing tasks.

It seemed in September that my writing life had been reduced to "pole dancing", and that I would never write a book as long as I remained addicted to comments and what was holding me back from becoming the writer I hope to become had to be the writing that came easiest to me and gave me the most joy. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, “You just looooove to be the center of attention, don’t you? You’ll never write a book because you can’t stand yourself enough to be alone and write it.”

So true. Sometimes those negative voices are painfully right.

So since September, I have been making myself work on my book every day. And, it is lonely, and I wish a chat window would open up somewhere with a friendly, supportive note to cheer me on. Instead I stare out the window at the drifting leaves, and then reload the gun of negative self-talk, and force myself to write some more.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. Because every time I pull that trigger, I know that if I was still blogging at Raising Maine, Virginia would remind me to breath, or Andrea would point what I did right, or Gen, or Melanie, or Linda would offer some comfort. Cara and Courtney and Susan and other mothers would commiserate if I was rambling on about boys. Julie would tease me. Jackie would scold me. Ann would smile.
And I wouldn’t feel so completely alone anymore.

So I decided to finally launch a blog at my new Wife of Bath website because that project is very dear to me and the mission, in addition to publishing the quarterly literary zine is also to support literary arts in Bath (and beyond), and it makes sense to blog there.

But you know? Without all of you it’s just not the same.

So, I will visit you here at Raising Maine from time to time. I’ll let you know how goes the struggle to not just be a good mother, but more importantly, to believe I am a good mother.

And I hope you will visit me at the Wife of Bath. Send me a story, poem, or drawing for the literary zine. The next issue, The Ghost of Christmas Past is due out at the end of the month. Starting this week, I will post a weekly writing prompt, so if you need inspiration, post a response. Leave me a comment on the WoB blog (you know how much I love those). Check out the events tab for upcoming literary activities.

You keep supporting me in my work as a mother....



And I…

I will support you in the work of being writers.