masterpiece

when postpartum survival mode eases a little, what should you make?

I started writing a novel in early 2021, and I’m picking it back up in earnest now. I want to finish a draft. With 40k words already written, a full manuscript feels possible — but is this really in me to do? I am trying to witness myself in this process, keep an eye on what is coming up for me as I stack words on words, build a little imaginary world that looks awfully similar to the real one I inhabit. This novel I’m writing feels scandalously personal. Call it autofiction, but I will place it more in the tradition of “poets surprising themselves by writing weird long true/not-true stories.” I am not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last! To distill the truth into prose, then to bend it just a little to be different — that’s such a world to explore. What if this detail were different, what about this one? Suddenly, you find yourself in a parallel universe, where you are you but not you, where your life is yours but not yours. Suddenly everything has changed. Through the Looking-glass vibes, if you know what I mean.

I don’t know how to write a novel, and yet it is what I am doing. All my writing feels autodidactic — as do so many of my other skills I’ve built over time, like sewing and knitting. Self-teaching seems to be my natural state as an artist. I feel activated learning new things in my own way, at my own pace, feeling my way through. My dearest theater teacher always used to say, “go before you’re ready,” and I’ve taken that advice to heart. So with marriage, so with motherhood, so with all the biggest choices and tasks. The readiness is all, and it always takes me by surprise.

That said, I can feel the ways I am lacking in craft. I have to remind myself that things have to happen in this novel. I witness the plot holes like craters I am afraid to touch. The vague ideas I had about what this novel would be about when I started writing it over three years ago since have all fallen apart and gotten rearranged. For example, when I started writing, it was set in the pandemic. Now, I am trying to wrest the narrative away from that framework, knowing that, however interesting, no one really wants to read pandemic novels anymore, if they ever did. The magical realism element I was so inspired by at the start now feels flimsy, how do I salvage it into something that works? Slowly honing voice, slowly finding the throughline, slowly making choices about who these characters really are and what they really want — all the while wondering if this will be something others will want to read. Literary fiction is not booming. If I wanted to make any money, I should probably change this into a hot romance novel with FAIRIES! Oof, I really fear I’m wasting my own time.

But, this is a matrescence novel, and I am well versed in that particular micro-genre. (Clearly). And the beauty of matrescence, the reason I have not yet tired of reading it over and over, is that the drama is inherent in the transformation a woman experiences as she becomes a mother. All the best matrescence books I’ve read actually have very little plot. They are driven by a character who is changing, and who is feeling that change in micro-movements within her interior landscape. This I can do! But, it’s a fine needle to thread, and I would really hate to do it badly. My shitty first draft feels like an elephant in a china shop (is that the saying?). I take solace in the weird matrescence novels I have loved, but I worry I can’t actually live up to their example. I’m thinking of The Shame, arguably my favorite novel I’ve read in the last five years — could I write a book like that? I guess that’s the question. The only way to find out is to make an honest attempt.

I make this attempt in short bursts, during the baby’s naps or while my mom is watching my kids in two-hour increments. I feel rich in time in a way, but also like there are a million other things I should be doing with my slim time to work — namely things that make money. Again, the fear of wasted time. That’s a real fear! I feel foolish! But foolishness is how art is made, I think. Art is always the work of earnest fools! I’m as earnest as they come, unfortunately. Just a mom in her toy-strewn living room writing a novel with the baby monitor at her side. Trying to sneak in edits before pre-school pickup. I could be taking a shower! I could be putting dinner in a crock pot! But instead, I am writing — and I have found that that is as essential to our life as dinner, as laundry, as bathing.

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It’s been some time since I last wrote in this post draft about novel writing. I’ve made a little progress in the manuscript, nothing incredible. Awake in the middle of the night recently, I filled a major plot hole in my head. I feel so much curiosity about this project, about my devotion to it. There are so many other ways I could be spending my time. So many other ways that would probably be more wise. But, I am here, trying to finish a book that I mostly expect will never make its way to actual publication. Why do I think that? Is confidence foolish? Does humility eschew big goals? Or maybe I just don’t put my faith in publication anymore. However jaded, I am here writing. I listen to music without words, mostly harp compositions by Mary Lattimore, or Gia Margaret’s albums. What is it I am doing?

I realized yesterday that 16 months after my second baby’s birth I think I’ve just gotten out of my postpartum “survival mode.” I’ve noticed a huge shift in myself. I started exercising regularly again for the first time in years (shout out to Range for being exactly the invitation back into movement that I needed!). I cut out a ton of sugar I’d been eating, I’m avoiding many processed foods, cooking more nourishing meals for myself. I feel myself to be crawling out of some hole I was in, looking around in the sun and wind. I want to work hard. I want to be challenged, to tap in to some kind of self-discipline, and, in the process, be reunited with whatever new version there is of my essential self. That inner being has been so covered over by exhaustion, the second-baby slump is so real and unavoidable. I feel more light footed now. I want to MOVE!

So maybe that’s what this novel is. I’m putting myself through my paces, “exercising” on the page. It’s a big challenge — to write something this long, to see it through, to make something whole and hefty that holds together. I’m going after my masterpiece, as my friend Katie described her creative goals as once. To see it through is my own dream. To think of this project as an actual book makes me feel bashful — it is so personal that it’s hard to imagine people reading it. So maybe that’s the challenge too, to not hide, even in my writing. To say the hardest things. To remove some layers of thick skin and see how it feels to be bare.

I feel afraid that I will never finish it. I think that’s part of my resolve to do it now, and quickly, too. If I can’t finish this, what does that say about me? I am thirty-one and I have done so muck work I am proud of, but I really fear the loss of momentum. I feel it, the impulse to slow to a stop. We want to have another baby in the next year or so, what then? Three kids — will that finally just fully eat me alive? My work? Any interiority I’ve been clinging to with my sharpest claws? I want to seep into motherhood AND I want to be the art monster, and I know I can’t be both! So I see this window of opportunity to get this something written. As I type this, the Mary Lattimore song I’m listening to is dissolving into controlled chaos, and that’s how I feel. It sounds like she’s scraping her fingers against the harp strings, hitting wrong notes on purpose, letting some desperation and wildness come through. This consonance resonates. I feel myself to be barely holding together, especially when it comes to my work. Everything else is solid ground, but work is shifting sand. What do I want?

Maybe it’s too much pressure to call this project my masterpiece. Maybe it’s too much pressure to even expect to finish it in a timely manner! I always want to let my work surprise me. To expect very little, see what happens. I work best when my “right hand doesn’t know what my left hand is doing,” to quote the Bible. But it also feels good to set some intentions, to maybe even manifest a little. There’s nothing wrong with hoping. And maybe part of the challenge is that hope. But, that said, I don’t think I’ll be too disappointed if this doesn’t end up being my golden ticket. There will always be work to do. I know that about myself. I will always find things to set my hands to. Using my time wisely is the rub. I can’t be trusted with time. I can only be trusted with the impulse to write and the thin tightrope-walk of writing. It is always miraculous. Especially in this season, when the other demands on me feel like they take everything I have and more. How can I expand past my limits? What is there space for?

I don’t really know. I just want to finish this. I want to make a new story that has never existed before, not in literature, not even in real life. The story that only I can write. I want it to be big and quietly wild. I think it’s in me. I’ll feel proud to get it out. If that’s a waste of time, so be it.

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What’s your masterpiece? Or what are you working on that feels foolish? Or, what feelings do those questions bring up? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo, more soon, read my zines if you want to read some mini-masterpieces.