Self-Care for Mom Writers: Nov/Dec are for Seeking Support

By Amy Mercer

Writing this column over the past year has taught me to think about how taking care of myself improves my writing. Over the past year, I’ve suggested hibernation, writing love letters, getting outside, reading poetry, taking a cooking class, learning how to surf and introducing yourself as a writer in an effort to take better care of ourselves as mom writers.

I struggle to stay motivated every day, especially now, as we head into the holiday season with the country in such a bleak financial situation, it’s hard to keep sitting down at the computer day after day feeling confident about calling myself a mom writer. But that’s why we’re here, to support each other, to boost each other when we are feeling down. So in my final column of the year, I want to thank everyone for reading, and offer my final bits of advice about taking care of ourselves by seeking support.

Tips:

• Don’t beat yourself up over rejections, they happen to all of us, all of the time. Focus your attention on the magazines and journals that say yes or even the ones that say no thank you but good idea. And when the rejections come, because they will, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell a non-writing friend, go online and blog about it, get it out any way you can and then you’ll be able to move on to the next project.

• Read or re-read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and other inspirational books about the writing life. Anne uses humor to inspire and encourage the writer in all of us.

• Take a local writing class or sign up to teach one. I am almost at the end of teaching my first creative writing class and it has done wonders for my confidence. I love talking about what I’ve learned over the last six years with people who share the same passion. Sign up for a writing seminar or go to a reading. I recently went to a workshop presented by southern author, Josephine Humphries. I have heard her speak about writing several times before, and every time, I learn something new, every time I step away from my own life and listen, I am renewed.

• Continue to read e-zines such as this one, stay connected to the virtual world of mom writers who will remind you that you are not alone.

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: October is for Believing in Ourselves

By Amy Mercer

I’ve noticed that when I meet new people and they ask what I do, I tend to shrug my shoulders and mumble about being a writer. It drives me crazy every time I do it, and I wonder what happened to my pride, my confidence…yet I can’t seem to stop. I also use those phrases when I’m getting ready to head out for my early morning runs. I always tell my husband and kids, “I’m just going for a quick run,” which totally minimizes my effort, hard work, and dedication. I remember a class I took in college called “Women Writers,” and the first thing the female professor said was that no one could begin a question with, “This may be a dumb question but.” Ever since she mentioned it, I’ve noticed just how often women tend to downplay their efforts or intelligence. So, I decided that October is for believing in ourselves. Here’s how to up your confidence:

• Introduce yourself as a writer to friends. Stand with your back straight and hold your chin high and repeat after me, “I am a freelance writer.” The more times you do it, the more comfortable you will be, and before long, you’ll realize you no longer shrug or make a joke about your career. You may even find yourself submitting more queries and entering more contests because you have come out of your writer’s closet.
• Read, “The Ambition Condition, women, writing and the problem of success” by Anna Clark in the fall issue of Bitch magazine. Ms. Clark writes, “By not owning up to her ambitions-whether they are in the public or private realms-a writer feeds the machine that discounts the aspirations and talents of all women writers.” This essay made me get up off the couch and grab a highlighter; it is a call to action for women writers. The more comfortable you become with your ambitions, the better you’ll feel, the more you will believe in the time you spend away from your family, your housework, your friends pouring your heart into your writing life.
• Register for a 5 or 10 k, tell your friends and family about it and ask them to come and cheer you on. Once you have people to answer to, there’s no way you’ll back down. Or start small, like me, and when you head out the door in the morning, afternoon, evening (or whenever you can grab thirty minutes to yourself)…tell the people you leave behind that you are going for a run (not a “quick one”), a walk, a yoga class, or a bike ride (whatever gets your heart rate up).

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: September is for Starting Over

By Amy Mercer

We’ve made it through the summer, mamas! I can’t speak for everyone, but I know many mamas who have given themselves over to entertaining children at the beach, in the movies, on the trails of mountains, at children’s museums, the aquarium, the neighborhood pool and as camp chauffeurs. Summer is the time when taking care of ourselves–our bodies and our writing–seems to slip.

Now that it is fall again, now that our children are back on a schedule, it’s time to step back in line, time to get back to business. It’s time to get up early and go for a run before dropping the kids off at school, time to walk past the dishes in the sink, the unmade beds and sit down Brush the cobwebs off, call that muse back to her station and get to work.

Move your Muscles. My husband and I have been watching the Olympics after we put the kids to bed at night, and while I’m proud to call myself a “writer,” I know that the act of writing is no spectator sport. As a thirty-seven year old mother of two, I’ve enjoyed watching Olympians Dara Torres (41) and Constantina Tomescu-Dita (38) compete with athletes half their age. Most of the writers I know push their minds more than their bodies as they sit in front of computers for long stretches of time without moving a muscle. I’ve queried several writing colleagues of mine about how they move their muscles while they work. One colleague says she sets the kitchen timer to go off every fifteen minutes which reminds her to stop her work, get up and stretch. Another writing friend makes deals with herself for writing time, for example, she can only sit down to write after she has been to her yoga class. I try to run every morning and when I return, I sit at my computer in my running clothes, which keeps me from reaching for that piece of banana bread. Think of Dara and Constantina as you write, mamas, and don’t forget to push your body as well as your mind.

Write about women athletes for inspiration, women who you admire for the way they push past their physical limits. Find a local female “celebrity” who has accomplished an impressive physical feat and ask for an interview. For example, there is a local woman who swam across the English Channel a few years back, I remember reading in the local paper about how she found time to train in between being a mother and a harpist in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Thinking of Kathleen Wilson swimming in the cold harbor-water every day made it easier for me to go for my morning run and edit that essay.

Make Muse-worthy Music. My sister listens to upbeat music on her ipod while she pushes her double jogger every morning because it drowns out the chatter of her children and allows her a little zen time. Download some favorite songs and listen to them while you write, you might find your muse in the lyrics and you might just get up and dance around the room every time the kitchen buzzer goes off…speaking of, there goes mine, it’s time for me to stretch!

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.
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Self-care for Mom Writers: July & August are for Water

Swimming lessons are very different for my boys here in the south than they were for me as a child growing up in the north. I remember standing at the edge of the pool in Vermont shivering, my teeth clacking together, before I stepped-one foot at a time-into the freezing pool water. My boys plunge headfirst into the pool for their swim lessons in July and August in order to escape the cloudless, white, saran-wrap heat of the south.

I float alongside the lanes to watch, cheer and pretend I’m a mermaid mama. Water, whether it is lakes, oceans, rivers, ponds or the creek, has always soothed me so that when I emerge, I am renewed. Water seeps into my essay writing in the form of metaphors; I am “kicking to keep my head above the water,” or “drowning in the sea of my son’s worries” or, “my passion for books is steady and unchanging like the pull of the tide.”

My book-in-progress is called, “Dreaming About Water.” So, if water is as soothing for you as it is for me, go to the beach, or the lake or the river with your children, submerge yourself in water. You will all sleep better that night.

Get Watery:

·    I know I can use a few reminders on the proper breathing techniques and since swimming is an excellent workout (good for the whole body and the mind), why not take swimming lessons with your kids? Come home and write about your first swimming lesson and compare it to your child’s, how was it different or the same?
·    Curl up on the beach while your children splash in a gully and read one of the following books for examples of water metaphors: The Sea by John Banville, Salt Water by Charles Simmons, or The Seas by Samantha Hunt. When you come home that night, read your children one of these wonderful water stories: Dear Fish by Chris Gall, The Fish Who Cried Wolf by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler or Flotsam by David Wiesner.
·    Take a walk on the beach in the early evening, get the blood flowing to your brain, bring your kids and let them collect shells while you wander ahead or behind, seeking inspiration.
·    Take surfing lessons, train for a triathlon, put your body in water and see what inspires you. Invent your own water metaphors.

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-Care for Mom Writers: June is for Juicy

By Amy Mercer

Our annual field trip to the strawberry patch is almost here and I’m looking forward to the buckets of fresh-off-the-vine, sweet berries to use in my strawberry, goat cheese, walnut and spinach salad. The activity will wear my children out so when we return home they’ll play quietly in the playroom and I will stand in the kitchen washing, trimming and assembling our dinner in peace. As I chop, my mind will be filled with whatever essay I’m working on, and I’ll wipe my hands on my pants and hurry to the lap-top and record my ideas.

Plucking fresh berries off the vine reminds me of growing up in Vermont and pulling fiddleheads out of the field for dinner, or climbing Mt. Tire’um in Maine and in between bites, filling my tee-shirt up with blueberries. Writer Mamas, self-care means feeding the soul and nurturing your body with locally grown fruits and vegetables, so take this month of June to:

Tips:

· Visit a strawberry patch with your kids and fill up baskets of berries. Read them Blueberries for Sal, and make strawberry smoothie or muffins. Buy some strawberries from the chain grocery store and have your children do a blind taste test to see which is better.

· Shop at your local farmer’s market and sample the goat-cheese smoothie or the organic honey. Talk to the farmers about seasonal foods.

· Go to Lowes and buy an all-in-one kid-friendly container that includes seeds for their very own sunflower plant. Buy some impatiens for the box underneath the window at your desk so when you are stuck searching for the right word to describe the way the water feels when you step in for the first time every June, look away from your flat screen and stare into the flowers for inspiration.

· Take a cooking class or go wine-tasting with your husband. Come home and write about the taste that lingers in your mouth, use words from the bottle like blackberry, mocha, vanilla and butter. Work on a query for one of the many food magazines such as: Cooking Light, Eating Well or Every Day with Rachel Ray.

· Take the kids to the library and check out Salad People by Moosewood Restaurant’s famous chef, Mollie Katzen with recipes for cooking with kids and let your children pick out a recipe to make at home. Or look for any of the food books (Fast Food, Food Play, and How Are You Peeling?) by Saxton Freyman and Joost Elffers who photograph real fruits and vegetable in their stories.
Show your children that food is fun: bring the book to the grocery store and attempt to re-create the shape, animal, plane, car and/or boat from one of the pages. You just might just discover something new about food while you’re at it!

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.
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Writer Mama E-zine Columnist Amy Mercer Featured in Literary Mama

Amy Mercer’s essay, “Swimming with my Clothes On,” appeared in the issue of Literary Mama that arrived in my inbox today.

Way to go, Amy!

Amy goes by “Chronic Mama” as a contributor to Literary Mama and maintains her own blog for mothers with chronic illnesses. She is the assistant editor of The Writer Mama E-zine. (You can subscribe to the e-zine format in the upper right-hand corner.)

Self-Care for Mom Writers: May is for Me!

By Amy Mercer

I don’t know about you, mama writers, but I feel like May is for me. I have spent too many hours volunteering at my kid’s pre-school field trips, Easter plays and birthday parties and I am spent. I have said yes to too many blogs, columns and editing projects and my creative writing, my passion has paid the price. So May is for me, May is for saying no, May is for sitting in front of the computer each day and writing for me.

Here’s some tips to help you reclaim you:

· Set a limit on the number of times you check your email during the day. For example, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and one time in the evening. The less you check your email, the less distracted from your creative writing you will be. As a mother, I’ve begun to feel guilty about the time I spend in front of my lap-top, away from my children and when I read an article in the New York Times about a writer who decided to regulate/restrict the time he spent on the computer, I was intrigued. Could I do the same thing? The idea of limiting my access to my computer made me hyperventilate. So I knew I had to try. I have not yet made it through a full day off-line, but I am attempting to limit my access and I’ve noticed that after hours away, when I log back on, I haven’t missed much.

· Whether you are a type A or a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl, pull out your planner, organize and catalog your writing goals. Having them on paper, in an organized fashion will help even the most spontaneous of us. And don’t forget to assess your progress. How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions? So far, so good? Or do you need to recommit? Write those down too.

· Practice saying no. Start small…No, I can’t make something sweet for the school’s Spring picnic. No, I can’t edit your article. No, I can’t volunteer for this writing group. And No, I can’t watch you ride your bike right now. Mommy needs to write. No is hard to say sometimes and you may feel guilty, but after a few tries, you’ll get more comfortable saying no and it will come easier. Soon, you will find yourself with time to write those stories that have been coming together in the back of your mind. You will breathe easier. You will smile more often. And you will remember that you are a writer.

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: April is for Action

By Amy Mercer

Spring has arrived here in the south. I’ve packed away our winter clothes, opened up the windows, and re-stocked my allergy medicine. I’ve also packed away the piles of essays, article pitches and research material into binders and folders from Target. I bought a woven basket and placed it next to my desk for all the folders I need within arm’s reach. I went through my bookcase and pulled the hardbacks I won’t be re-reading (because I never read a book more than once even with the best intentions) to sell them on my amazon.com account.

Once my “office” is in order; (or my corner of the dining room) it’s time to get outside. Some of my best ideas for stories come while I am running along the trails of our neighborhood, riding bikes with my kids or pulling weeds. It might look like I’m playing, but I am hard at work; I breathe the fresh air, work up a sweat and unleash my imagination. As my feet pound a steady rhythm along the dirt trails, words flow like a rushing river. I sprint toward home and furiously type the words while sweat drips down my back and my breathing slows.

Spring has sprung and like the rushing river, my imagination has been cleared of its clutter and I sit down to write. Here’s some inspiration to get you moving:

Tips:

1.    Read Joyce Carol Oates’ essay about writing and running, To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet, from the New York Times archives. (www.newyorktimes/library/books/071999oates-writing.html) for inspiration, “In running the mind flies with the body.”

2.    Read just a few lines  of, “Morning Poem” by Mary Oliver:

If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.

3.    Get outside and get moving! Then see what happens in the first fifteen minutes after you sit back down to work. Better? You don’t have to exercise vigorously to achieve positive results. Even a short walk will often do the trick.

Happy springing into action, mamas!

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: March is for Money

Tax season is upon us and if you are anything like me, your chest constricts at the very thought of how to organize your freelance jobs and expenses. Take a deep breath. A part of taking care of yourself is being financially responsible, not just for tax time, but for always.

Put aside some time, when the kids are in bed or at school, and use a resource like Turbo Tax or Microsoft Money to organize your writing related income vs. expenses. It will make you breathe easier. If you work from home, there are many tax write off’s you might not even know about, such as that play room/office, or even all those writing magazines you subscribe to.

Financial worries are not uncommon for us stay at home mama writers, and easing or managing our financial stress is a necessary part of taking care of ourselves.

Tips:

1. One of my favorite features of Microsoft money is the “set up your spending limit” tool. Groceries are the biggest expense next to the mortgage in our house, and I breathe easier knowing Microsoft money is helping me keep an eye on my grocery bill. There are also all kinds of budgeting graphs and pie charts to customize for us visual learners as well.
2. Invest in Turbo Tax, it’s only 29.95$ (or free for simple forms) and it walks you through your taxes step by step.
3. Read “Tax Time Tips for Freelancers” (http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a9574.asp) from Mediabistro.
4. Start teaching your kids about money and you just might learn something yourself. Read Jeff Opdyke’s weekly column about balancing family and money as a writer, “Love and Money” (http://online.wsj.com/article/love_and_money.html) in the Wall Street Journal.
5. If managing money raises your blood pressure, make an appointment with a financial planner. Do your research; there are affordable options available for every writer mama.

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: February is for Fantasies

By Amy Mercer

Love is in the air and just because we’re knee deep in the motherhood trenches doesn’t mean we can’t spend some time with cupid! Taking care of ourselves means getting as well as giving love. Sex adds a glow to our skin, burns calories, and raises dopamine levels. Give love and it will come back to you. We are much more than Desperate Housewives; we are smart, sexy writer mamas.

Here’s some tips for taking good care of you:

1. Remember reading Forever by Judy Blume in the back of the school bus? Put away your “How To” writing books and snuggle down with a romance novel.
2. Compose a love letter to or from one of your male fiction characters.
3. Write a steamy sex scene and show it to your husband, ask his advice on the details.
4. Rent Out Of Africa, An Officer and a Gentleman or Dirty Dancing.
5. Pull down your box of love letters, journals, and diaries from when you were young and in love for the first time. Remind yourself of how that felt.

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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.

Self-care for Mom Writers: January is for Hibernation

By Amy Mercer

Take these dark, rainy or snowy days of winter to retreat from the world, create a cocoon for yourself and regenerate, mamas. While everyone else is spending money on gym memberships, you can save and take a few precious moments to curl up at home in front of the fire while the kids play in the snow or, if you live in the South like me, jump in the puddles.

Drink lots of hot tea or coffee and take warm baths while the kids are in school or asleep for the night. Slow down, stop trying to do it all, put away the overused, worn thin superwoman costume for the month.

When the sun starts to shine again from within, you’ll come out of your cocoon refreshed and ready to send out those articles, essays and book proposals. You will be strong and ready to face the inevitable rejections as well as embrace promising opportunities.

Here’s some tips for taking good care of you:

1. Write a memory of your most relaxing vacation, how did it make you feel and why? Pull out the photo album, what did the beach smell like, how did the sand feel between your toes? Take us there with you.

2. If you work outside the home, schedule a “sick day” and spend it alone under your covers with a notebook and your favorite pen.

3. Make a movie date with the kids, blow up the inflatable bed, pull the shades, pop some corn and snuggle down under the comforter.

4. Unplug your computer for the day. Organize your bookcase, fill a box to donate to the local library, or sell on Amazon and find an old favorite to re-read while the kids are sleeping.

A little self-care goes a long way in the face of a long winter, mamas. What will you do to take care of you this January?
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Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC with her husband and two sons. Her writing has been published in skirt! Magazine, Literary Mama, Diabetes Forecast and A Cup of Comfort for Writers. Amy is Blog Editor for Literary Mama and Associate editor for The Writer Mama Zine. More at Dreaming About Water.