Do Work, Son

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I never stopped being a working mom when I stopped being a working mom.  I just changed the job and the location.

(Moms don’t really ever stop working, in case you didn’t know that. Even the ones who don’t get paid in money.)

I didn’t intend to become a writer when I quit teaching. I didn’t quit the career that I loved and walk away from my education and experience to write. Even now it feels sort of pretentious to say “I’m a writer.” But it’s true.

I’m a writer. 

I think it sort of clicked when I listened to Roo and Denene speak at Type A. Here were two women who are writers saying “Hey, we’re writers. If you want to be a writer or you are a writer, take yourself seriously and do work, son.” They didn’t actually say “do work, son” but they might as well have.

They inspired me to go for it. To take a leap.

If I’m going to do this, I have to do this. So I’m doing this.

Last week I put out some feelers for writing beyond the work I do in the evenings for TV Fanatic (which, by the way, is still the coolest job ever and I can’t believe I have it). They were willing to take on a freelance writer to help cover their workload and that was that.

I was a writer for hire.

Friday morning I put Emma in daycare and came back home and wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote. It was exhilarating. I picked the kids up and we went for ice cream like we do every Friday afternoon and I was happy.

By Friday night I was the good kind of exhausted. I wasn’t bone-weary. I had spent the day stretching my brain in a way that it hadn’t been stretched in a while and it was good for me.

Yesterday I did the same thing. This Friday I’ll do it again.

I’ll wake up and get dressed down to my shoes (but please don’t look at my sink because no, it isn’t shiny) and I’ll come home and make a cup of coffee and sit at a table, or in my new office space once it’s finished, and I’ll write. As articles are assigned to me, I’ll do the best I can to write things people want to read and share with other people.

Twice a week Emma will get to play and learn from people who aren’t me, which I personally think is a good thing. I will get to hone a skill while doing something I love so much it doesn’t actually feel like working. And I’ll make a little money on the side.

It’s the very definition of win-win.

I came back from Type A with the plan to write something, somewhere every single day. It’s how I pay myself. It’s how I get better. It may not always be something here, but I’m writing. Every day I’m writing.

I’m a writer.