Cori Howard, author of Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood wants to encourage us all to write down our “momoirs”.
To get started:
- Get a notebook and to keep it with them at all times. You never know when you might find a spare few minutes, or when and where your little angel might fall asleep. Having a notebook means you’re a mobile writer and all moms are mobile!
- Have faith in your own story. There’s a lot of writing on motherhood out there, but each of us has a unique perspective and a one-of-a-kind experience and almost all the moms I know, never tire of hearing new stories.
- If you get stuck and don’t know where to start, to just pick a topic: preschool, the dinner table, saying goodbye, faith. Those usually spark some amazing stories in my classes.
She also tells us:
In the crazy, overwhelming chaos of everyday life as a mother, there is so much to write about, and so little time. From memorializing your daughter’s sentences to your inner struggle with your post-baby identity, there are a millions stories you want to remember. The first thing I did upon becoming a mother (after the identity crisis, the ambition crisis and the marriage crisis sort of subsided) was write a book, an anthology about all this struggle (Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood).
After receiving dozens of emails from women wanting to know if there was a sequel and if I was interested in hearing their stories, I decided to start teaching “momoir” classes, helping women get their personal experience with motherhood into well-crafted words, whether it’s for themselves or to publish in a magazine or as a book.
If you want to learn more, or read some of the new stories written by Cori’s students, check out: TheMomoirProject.com. Canadians can find in-person classes in both Toronto and Vancouver too! Or grab her book, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood.
Related activity: Track your new mama milestones
Keeping a notebook with you is such a great idea and I don’t know why I resist doing it! I frustrate myself.
I love the notebook idea…I really had not thought of keeping a notebook just for journaling the trials and tribulations of motherhood. I keep a small notebook as a to-do list, but I will definitely convert it for this purpose. The baby book is just too bulky to be useful all the time.
I use a blank calendar for keeping up with my 16 month old’s milestones, new words, cute stories, etc. I keep it hanging up in the hallway next to her room. When she does something amazing I write it on the calendar…it is such a timesaver and I am still documenting all of the progress without always grabbing the baby book to find the appropriate place to write about it. It is so easy to forget when she used her first baby sign or started helping me feed the dogs if I don’t write it down.
Thanks for the tip and I hope I can help someone else in return!