It’s been quiet on the blog for a while.
It’s not that my life’s been quiet but rather that I decided to wholeheartedly get stuck into research on how to best pitch my picture book project to three carefully selected agents with three carefully compiled submissions that went into the post this morning. And whilst I may not have hit the ‘publish’ button here, I did amass an impressive collection of loose papers and a new notebook filled with half-written posts that I vow to get up here in the coming weeks.
Not writing for a while has also given me space to ponder what this blog is really about. I pretty much started writing to figure out what I wanted to write about, resulting in a random collection of posts lovingly dumped under the heading of General Musings (for that read: stuff that came into my head). I love them all AND I’m beginning to feel the need to become a bit more streamlined. I don’t usually follow rules but all those brainy Internet peeps who tell you to ‘niche’ must be on to something. After all, if you believe that you can’t market stuff that appeals to EVERYONE (unless you’re Apple, or Harry Potter), then the same must apply to your online reflections.
When I got started last year, I said this blog was going to be about my journey as a writer. Inevitably, it has also become about my journey as a mum – the material Lilly provides is just too good to pass up! Whilst both lend themselves nicely to becoming prominent blog topics, they also pose a rather huge personal challenge, namely the cliché of becoming yet another mum who a) blogs and b) writes children’s books. So that’s a double whammy, basically. At least I don’t do things by halves! Anyway, that’s where I’m going for now. I can always change it should I get bored.
Writing about my journey as a writer seems easy but really it’s pretty up close and personal. Especially when you’re just starting to get your feet wet and have the faint awareness that someone potentially important in the book world may actually come across these pages sooner or later. After all, my vision clearly states that I would love to have this blog turned into a book or column one day – a kind of Carrie Bradshaw for the mummy world. (note to self: research whether mummy-ish Carrie Bradshaw types qualify for designer heels and clothes that cost more than your monthly mortgage)
Which leads me to the whole mummy thing. I know I’ve written quite a lot about my experiences with Lilly yet part of me has also resisted becoming ‘just another mummy blog’. I don’t have anything against them but I still do have some ambivalent feelings about defining myself as a mum. I have seen my own mother devoting herself exclusively to the role yet in many ways being so unfulfilled that I have always felt compelled to be more than ‘just mum’. But I can’t deny that the mummy thing is now a huge – and wonderful – part of my life that brings me much joy, and little sleep. And I have a fierce desire to set an example for Lilly about what’s possible and believing in your dreams.
So there you have it – mum and writer (it’s taken me a while to come back around to that theme!). All I can say for now is that they both result in cold pizza.
I’ll explain that one in another post…