COVER FEATURE
Mom Writer Lisa Garrigues: The Importance of Writing Motherhood
by Stephanie McCarty
As mom writers, many of us recognize the benefits that come with writing about our motherhood experiences. Now, award-winning writer and experienced educator, Lisa Garrigues, has created an invaluable resource for any mother, writer or not, to begin chronicling her own unique journey through motherhood.
In her new book, “Writing Motherhood,” Garrigues draws on her own efforts to balance the demands of motherhood and writing, showing readers how everyday life can be a rich source of stories, and how writing can provide a means to understand and document their experiences.
Her inspiration to write the book came from her popular “Writing Motherhood” workshop which she has taught for several years. She says the birth of the workshop is one of her favorite stories to tell, because it reminds her that every journey begins with a first step, no matter how small.
Back in the summer of 2000, when she was hiking with her family in the Canadian Rockies, Garrigues realized it was time for her to begin teaching writing. She says this wasn’t because she considered herself an expert, but because she was guided by something she had recently read — the advice of an Indian yogi who said, “Teach in order to learn.”
When Garrigues returned home from vacation, she volunteered to lead a writing group at her local library. What followed was a series of serendipitous events that led her to teach “Writing Motherhood.” That experience has been just as rewarding for her as for her students. “I can tell you that in all these years of teaching the workshop, I have learned as much, if not more, from my students as I could ever hope to teach them,” she says.
Several years later, the author had another inspirational moment while on a hike. “If ever I have moments of inspiration, they seem to come to me when I am hiking in the mountains,” she says. “Maybe it's from breathing the thin alpine air; maybe it's from being closer to God. Whatever the reason, the idea for my book came to me one day like a lightning bolt on a hike in the Swiss Alps. Later that day, I wrote (about the book) in my notebook, and six months after that, I began work on ‘Writing Motherhood.’”
“Writing Motherhood” is different from other books about writing and motherhood, in that “It invites every mother to pick up a pen and begin writing from the text of her own life, whether she considers herself a writer or not,” says Garrigues. “This is the first book that brings together the craft of writing with the art of mothering,” she continues.
In each chapter of the book, she uses a story from her own life to illuminate a universal truth about motherhood. Then she points the way for readers to record their own stories in the pages of what she calls a “Mother’s Notebook.”
Garrigues feels it is so important for mothers to write about their experiences because their Mother’s Notebook will be a keepsake and their daily writing will “keep them sane.” “Mothers write for lots of different reasons: for wisdom, clarity, confidence, direction, maybe for a little comic relief,” she explains. “Whatever your motivations, writing makes us more conscious and more conscientious as mothers.”
She also feels strongly that women should write longhand as opposed to solely on the computer, because Garrigues feels that writing in a notebook allows writers to show their process. “When we write by hand, we tend to write what is closest to our heart.”
“Writing Motherhood” invites mom writers to take it one day at a time, writing just two pages or 15 minutes a day, capturing one moment of motherhood on paper as it unfolds. “Try to remember that what makes motherhood memorable is not the vast chronology of raising our children from diapers to adulthood, but rather the moments — big and small, traumatic and trivial — that happen in the course of a day,” she says. “Over time, the pages will add up and will reveal the changing color, the light and shadow, of your days as a mother.”
For Garrigues, motherhood has not been an impediment to creativity but rather a rich source for storytelling. She feels fortunate to have found a way to integrate her three career paths – teaching, writing and mothering – so that they overlap and intersect.
When asked about her biggest challenge as a mom writer, she feels the challenge has changed over the years. “If you'd asked me that question 10 years ago when my children were little, I would have said ‘time,’ but I have since discovered that I can almost always manage to carve out 15 minutes a day to write. Now I know that ‘doubt’ has been my greatest challenge. Some days I doubt my subject matter, thinking that my life is too boring to write about. Other days I doubt my skill as a writer, convinced that I can't possibly translate my experience into words; it's almost as if every time I open my notebook, I have to talk myself into being a writer again. But it doesn't take long before I know that writing, like mothering, is exactly what I am supposed to be doing.”
Garrigues feels her biggest reward has been community and she confides that one of the reasons she began to teach writing was because she felt so lonely and alone as a mother and a writer. “Again and again, in the classes and workshops I teach, I have witnessed the magic that happens when women come together to share their stories.”
The process of writing her book also helped her deal with her own personal struggles during the time, including a breast cancer diagnosis. “About a year after I had begun work on my book, I found a pea-sized lump in my right breast,” says Garrigues. “At first, I could not write. My therapist kept telling me that illness is an important chapter of “Writing Motherhood.” Mothers get sick. But I was afraid that if I wrote the words down, the events happening to me would be real. Then I could not not write. I wrote in waiting rooms, in doctors' offices, at the foot of my children's beds while they slept. As I say in my book, “Writing Motherhood” became a kind of lifeline, and my Mother's Notebook kept me afloat. I waited until the Afterword to tell this story because I wanted to end the book with the message that whatever challenges you may face as a mother, writing can help you cope.”
Garrigues offers this advice for mom writers: “Always remember that you are writing for you,” she says. “Don’t ever feel that you have to explain what or why you are writing, and don’t ever let anyone – including yourself – talk you out of writing. If motherhood is a journey, then writing will help you get where you need to go.”
“Writing Motherhood” is filled with much additional advice for moms and writers, including: how to start a Mother's Notebook; how to carve out the time and space to write; how to silence the critical voices that stifle your creativity; how to jumpstart your writing; and how to join a group of mothers who want to write.
Reminiscing about her writing and mothering experiences, she says, “I get goose bumps every time I think about the fact that my book begins the day I came home from the hospital with my newborn baby, and now, just two months after the publication of my book, that baby is graduating from high school. It really does go by fast. As I watch my firstborn and my first book go out into the world at the same time, I know that all there is for me to do now is to let them go. So I will open my notebook and start writing, as I have done practically every day for the past 18 years.”
For more writing inspiration, visit Lisa’s website at: www.writingmotherhood.com and be sure to pick up a copy of “Writing Motherhood” (Scribner 2007), available at bookstores everywhere.
Stephanie McCarty’s Fumbling Toward Motherhood column appears regularly in print and online publications. One of her columns was included in the recent release: “Chicken Soup for the New Mom’s Soul.” Stephanie writes from Ohio where she currently lives with her husband and young daughter, who is the inspiration for her column. She expects to find even more inspiration when they welcome their second daughter in the fall. Read more of Stephanie’s work at: www.fumblingtowardmotherhood.com or contact her at: Stephanie@fumblingtowardmotherhood.com.
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