What We Make, Makes Us

Motherhood, Writing, and the Invisible Work of Becoming

All dreams require sacrifice. Whether it’s parenthood, starting a business, or pursuing a creative passion, we know this truth before we begin—but it’s a very different thing to experience it.

By the time my debut novel—Annie in Retrospect—comes out this October, I’ll have been writing and editing it for three and a half years. The first year and a half, I wrote three drafts of my novel. Then came the work of sharing it with Beta readers, submitting it to publishers and querying agents. Then it went to editors and proofreaders. More re-reading and editing. And now, three years in, though the writing of the book is finally “complete,” the work of selling and promoting the book is only getting started.

It’s now hours upon hours of marketing and publicity research, submitting for reviews, networking, writing content, working to build up a readership. Around every corner, there’s a new thing I should invest in. A course I should take. A professional I should hire. A webinar I should watch. A book I should read. A marketing opportunity I shouldn’t pass up. Invest more time. Invest more money.

Sometimes it feels like all I’ve done for this career is sacrifice: My time. My body. My finances.

I uprooted my life and moved across the country for my MFA; took on six figures of student loan debt; had surgery to help relieve my body from chronic pain caused from years of writing at a computer; spent countless hours working without a paycheck to write a book and build a platform.

Now I’m being asked to put this labor of love out into the world, with no control over how it will be received, and zero guarantee I’ll ever earn back what I’ve put in.

And lately I’ve realized: being an author feels a lot like being a mom.

After my daughter was born, I remember having the very real urge to text every woman I knew who didn’t have kids yet to warn them:
Run. Run for your lives. We’ve all been horribly deceived.

I hadn’t slept in days. I’d labored for over 40 hours before having an emergency C-section, and just hours later—still doped up, unable to sit up or walk—I was handed a crying baby to care for. This was not the magical postpartum bliss I’d imagined. This was survival.

What becomes clear very quickly is that motherhood, like writing, is mostly sacrificial.

Both transform you, inside and out. Both require you to rearrange your life. Both take everything you’re willing to give.

And the great irony of my life is that these two parts of me—the mother and the writer—have so often felt at odds.

Time spent writing is time away from my kids.
Time spent with my kids is time I could be writing.
Time I spend on my book during the week is time I could be earning money for the family.
Time I spend writing on weekends is time away from the family.

It quickly becomes a no-win scenario.

And yet, the truth is, I cannot be the mother I want to be without writing.
And I believe I’ve become a better writer because of my experiences as a mother.

That’s the paradox I keep coming back to.
Motherhood: the thing I feared would end my creative dreams—exhaust me, consume me, erase me—turned out to be the thing that also brought those dreams back to life. (The first scene I wrote for Annie in Retrospect was the byproduct of a very stressful diaper change. True story.)

Of course, there are days I wonder if pursuing authorship as a career is worth it.
Just like every mother has those moments of wondering who she might have been if so much of her hadn’t been sacrificed to “the motherhood.”

But what motherhood has taught me, more than anything, is that the journey is the reward.
It’s the first smiles—or the first lines.
The first words and the first snuggles.
The nights spent rocking a baby—or writing a great scene.
The quiet moments no one sees, when something stirs to life inside you.

The thing you create that becomes whole—and goes on to experience a life of its own.

In a few months, I’ll release my first book into the world. I won’t have any control over how it’s received. I can’t protect it from criticism or misunderstanding. All I can do is let it go, trust what I’ve given it, and hope it finds the people it’s meant to find.
Because in the end, it’s what we create that becomes our legacy.

But all those priceless moments? Those are ours to keep.