I’m feeling burned out in my reading this week. So I’m turning to writing. But I’m so out of practice. I realize I need more balance.

Write on Wednesday this week is a writer’s meme, so I’ll start here. (more…)

Write On Wednesday asks:

Do you consider yourself a writer? Do you think blogging is “real writing?” What does it take to be a “real writer”?

I write for a blog.

Actually, I write for four blogs.

But, like Becca says, I don’t tell people I do. When they ask what I like to do, I say “reading” or “photography,” but I never say “I like to write.”  I never say “I blog. A lot.”

I am torn in that respect. Why can’t I speak up? Chefdruck mentioned on her site a few weeks ago that she similarly had to “come out of the closet” in admitting that blogging is a large part of her life. I’m still in the closet.

In my mind, my blogging-writing isn’t “real writing.” It is a hobby that I take seriously. I spend much more time writing my book reviews. But when I get time, as I do this Saturday morning, I sit down to write and think about my writing process. As I’ve made clear on this blog, at some point in my life, I hope to make writing (anything) a priority. When will that be? I don’t know.

What would it take to make my writing “real”? Real writing, to me, is something that has been written and rewritten and polished. I’m sorry to say that while I do work hard on these blog entries, they are hardly “polished.”

Someday, I’ll write “for real.” Maybe I write a well-researched nonfiction book about something that interests me. Maybe I’ll write a novel. Maybe I’ll write a story. Maybe I’ll ghostwrite. At some point I’ll make my writing real.

I still consider myself a writer. For now, though, I’m just a “closet writer.” A “blogging writer.”

How do you cultivate creativity in your life?  Have you found the things that make you come alive? Are you doing them? Shouldn’t you be? (Write on Wednesday)

I started blogging for the public world in May — a book blog, this writing blog, a photography blog. All the sudden, there is a new creativity in my life, and it feels good.

Sometimes I get an idea for a writing sketch. Writing that makes me come alive.  I am not very good at fiction, but when I had time, I sat down and responded to some Fiction Friday prompts. I really felt alive as I created those characters. I’ve tried my hand at a novel that I have in mind. But time seems to stifle my creativity; I don’t have nearly enough time to spend nurturing those little children into being.

Every few weeks, I take some pictures, or I work with old photographs I’ve taken. I tweak them and upload them to my photography blog. I like working with my photographs, and I feel creative. But again, time stops me, and I get busy and forget.

Most often, I’ve been reading. When I finish reading something and stop to write a few passages about it, I feel I come alive. Analyzing what I read was what I did in college as an English major. I loved it then. I love it even more so now because I’m not spending days on each book: I’m finding the inspiring themes in less than 1,000 words and then I’m moving on to another inspiring book. Good literature is helping me cultivate my creativity.

Am I doing all I can to cultivate creativity? No; if so, I’d spend all day nurturing my fictional characters and the words and photographs that feel so good. Instead, I nurture my little boy, who is going to be walking soon and seems to eat constantly these days. Should I be doing more? No, my priorities are where they should be right now.

Sometimes, I wish I could spend eight hours a day writing and reading. Then my boy laughs as he stands up: he’s so proud of himself. I realize I don’t want to change anything.

So for now, I’ll focus on being a mom 24 hours a day. That keeps me alive. I’ll also keep reading inspiring literature: it adds an aspect of creativity that makes me feel alive, even when I’m too busy to sit and give life to the fictional characters and writing sketches residing in my mind.

When I was seven or eight years old, my mother gave me a cloth-and-porcelain doll she’d loved as a girl. I loved that doll, despite the arm falling off at the seam. My mother sewed a new arm on her.

My doll was my baby. I put her in a doll crib at the foot of my bed. I changed her clothes. I rocked her to “sleep.” She “napped.”

At some point, I moved on and left her in my closet. She’s still there somewhere.

Almost nine months ago, my firstborn son was born. I admit that I did try every single newborn outfit on him within the first days, just because he was the most adorable baby I’d ever seen, better than any doll. But I love him. I rocked him to sleep, day and night.

Now that he’s squirming and crawling, he’s less doll-like. But he’s perfect, and caring for him is my life every day, 24 hours a day. Even when I get a break, I am thinking about him, worrying about him, loving him. I’m constantly writing things to him and about him, in my mind.

At some point in my life, I’ll probably go back to work. I may write a book: fiction, nonfiction, who knows at this point. When you turn to the About the Author page, you’ll probably see my picture with a description like this:

Rebecca Reid is the proud mother of — and the wife of —. She loves her family with all her life.

It won’t be unusual, though, because everything in the book, fiction or nonfiction, will relate to motherhood, family relationships, and the love of a mother for her child. That is my line now, but it is also my imagined happy ending.

True response to Write on Wednesdays: What is Your Line?, Write Anything: About the Author page, and Sunday Scribblings: Endings.

Right now I sit on the couch with my laptop on my lap. I’m downstairs, beside the playpen full of toys, in our living room. The playpen is empty, the baby that usually occupies it asleep upstairs for his morning nap.

I see the dusty hardwood floor that needs to be swept. I see the dishes in the sink that need to be loaded in to the dishwasher. I see the basket of clean clothes that need to be folded and carefully returned to the dresser.

I have no comfortable chair in a private office with “Do Not Disturb” the door. I have no quiet peaceful retreat on the porch in the early morning hours. I have nowhere beside the couch downstairs or the office chair at my lopsided desk upstairs in the loft.

Instead of doing my chores, I sit here on the couch, my feet on the coffee table, and face the empty page. The cursor blinks.

Response to Write on Wednesday question.