motherhood, Parenting, Poetry, Writing

On motherhood and writing

Raidah Shah Idil

So….it’s been a while. Much has happened. In short, motherhood is decimating, on so many levels, especially with a spirited toddler.  Please don’t tell me, “Wait til she becomes a teenager!” I will strangle you with my mind.

My pre-motherhood writing practice: Daily, disciplined, at my desk, mug of tea, nature sounds playing in the background.

Current writing practice: WHAT PRACTICE!? WHAT DESK?

Haha. I kid you. I do have a desk. I’m just not there as much as I’d like to be. Right now, I take what I get. Much like a starving person and scraps of food. Motherhood has shown me how much of an introvert I really am, and how much writing helps me surface for much-needed air.

I loved these articles:

  1. Freelancing with a Family: How to Balance Your Work and Your Kids
  2. Yes, It Is Possible to Write a Novel With Small Children Hanging On You
  3. Making Time to Write When You Have Young Children: Mission Impossible?

This post really resonates with me: After Page One: Claiming Space. So beautiful and so real. There is no perfect writing room for me, either – but I make do what with I have.

My daughter spurs my creativity, as much as I need to work around her. I write this as my toddler woke up from sleep. My husband brought her down to have breakfast. She’s in a good mood this morning, so that buys me approximately 10-20 minutes, before she starts calling for me once my husband leaves for work. Go, Raidah, go!

If you’re a writing parent, especially a writing mum, I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do you find time and energy to write? What helps? What doesn’t help? How do you balance forgiving yourself for not writing as much as you’d like, alongside celebrating your small victories?

Some blog ideas I’m playing with, as I resurrect my blog from the abyss of mothering a toddler:

  • Book review on N.K. Jemisin’s incredible Broken Earth trilogy.
  • Book review on Zen Cho’s Sorcerer To the Crown.
  • Reflections on reading my poetry at my sister’s chapbook launch.
  • I finally submitted my poetry manuscript to the wonderful Ethos Books!

I’m open to suggestions. Leave a comment and share your thoughts 🙂

Published by Raidah Shah Idil

Raidah Shah Idil is a student counsellor, poet, writer, and creative instructor with a passion for YA (young adult), fantasy, sci-fi and detective fiction. She was born in Singapore and moved to Australia at the age of 12. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from the University of New South Wales in 2005. After working as a marketing copywriter and studying the Islamic Sciences in Amman, Jordan for nearly two years, she returned to Sydney, got married, then moved to Malaysia. While working as a part-time tutor at Axiom Learning, she works as an online counsellor for Seekershub Global. She has completed her Diploma of Counselling through the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. Her full-time job is raising her baby daughter. Everything else is squeezed in between. Literally. Her writing has been published in The Feminist Wire, SISTERS magazine, Daily Life, Lip Mag and Venture Beat. Raidah’s poetry was recently published in the ‘Armed With Only Our Souls’ online DDFS chapbook by New York poet Caits Meissner. Her debut double-featured novel, “Finding Jamilah and the Story of Yusuf” was published by MyLegacy publications in early 2014. In her spare time (ha), she reads, listens to audiobooks, goes on walks, and is always on the lookout for tasty noodle soup. She currently lives in a green, leafy suburb in Kuala Lumpur with her husband, three small children and mother-in-law.

2 thoughts on “On motherhood and writing”

  1. Salaams Raidah, so nice to read your writing! Not sure if you remember me, we met many moons ago in Sydney I believe? As much as I love writing and consider myself a writer in some ways, I have still yet to come up with a solution to this 😛 For me personally I am prone to believing that it is not yet my time, and I’m still very much absorbing and learning and one day the time will be right and all these words will just flow out. Until then, I am content with reading the writings of others such as yourself. Thank you for blessing us with your words! 🙂 Love and peace from Sarajevo ❤

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s