Midnights, March: 9

I know that there are plenty of other writer-mothers out there who, by eight months postpartum, were fully back into a writing routine. I can see them, hunched in the dim light of a late-night nursing session, typing away, hitting their word counts, getting it done. 

I am not one of those women. 

I’m built different. 

Worse.

“Every path is different, Carrie,” they tell me. “Don’t stress about it. Just stay in your lane. Moisturize. Hydrate.” 

That’s too slippery. I don't need all that stuff; I just want to be over the eight-month dry spell that started the day I pressed “print” on this baby. [AHAHA SUCH A GROSS METAPHOR WHY DID I EVEN THINK OF THAT—although there was a bit of a paper jam at one point—APPARENTLY 3-AM-CARRIE HAS NO FILTER.]

I was so fruitful while I was pregnant. What happened? “MAYBE,” I hear you say, “YOU’RE SLEEP-DEPRIVED.” But that’s not it. Not entirely. Maybe it's simply that nothing I will ever create for the rest of my life could possibly compare to this sweet boy. He is my tiny masterpiece, the babbling-drooling-giggling pinnacle of my creative abilities. Maybe that's why it's so painful now to read over my writing. “This isn't good enough,” I mutter with mounting frustration, but I don't know how to make it better. I read and I learn and I practice, but still the writing doesn't get there. What am I looking for? What will be good enough? Is it a problem with story or prose? 

Eight months later, I'm still not sure. 

Meanwhile, the work waits.