Motherhood

From Arts & Letters Daily:

Given all the hits a mother is liable to take, is motherhood worth it? Trouble is, you can’t know what kind of motherhood you’ll get... more

Gee, with all the ink that gets spilled on motherhood each year, you think people would figure out how to make so many aspects of it less depressing.

Never heard of Maternal Depletion Syndrome (MDS) syndrome before, but I'm sure that at various points in my journey of motherhood, I've had it.

Hmm. I might investigate the magazine this article's published in. Haven't heard of it before. It looks interesting.

These two songs are about the same thing

The Summer Before the War and Brand New '64 Dodge -- about looking back on the idyllic past, to right before the point that blissful world and all innocence was lost forever.

The brother of the cruel sister

I have a mild urge to write the story of a conversation between Hugh and the miller's daughter, re: this story. (Or maybe William and the miller's daugther?)

Problem is, Pat Wrede has already written the story of the confrontation between the middle sister and the harper. And I critiqued it in manuscript, too, before it was published.

Hmm . . .

The thing is, we're both haunted by that song for the very same reason: we went to see Loreena McKennitt in concert together where she sang that song. In fact, I'm the one who persuaded Pat to go with me.

Yeah, writing

kijjohnson wrote a good entry about writing, and how to arrange your life to do it. And . . . and . . .

I know all this stuff.

I just have to decide what to do about it. And then do it.

Argh.

Do I want to be a writer or not? Why am I hesitating to make the commitment to invest the butt-on-the-chair time and do the fricking work?

My muse needs a leash and a choke chain. She keeps wandering off and reading instead of writing. Only problem is, she'd probably be so pissed at me if I tried it that she'd never cough up another page.

Not that she's giving me much right now.

V. crabby and tense, thinking about this. But I think I'm on the cusp of a renewed commitment to writing. Even if all I produce is dreck. Minicon's coming up. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Books for March, 2004

Mansfield Park by whats-er-name Austen. Yeah. You've heard of her, right? First time read--are you kidding??? Nope, a re-read

Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon. Re-read.

Anubis Gates by Tim Powes. Re-read.

Emerald House Rising. I forget the author's name. Uh, re-read.

Am now reading The Lays of Beleriand, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm embarrassed to admit this one's a first time read. Actually, I'm savoring it, sipping little bits of it, taking it very slowly.

That's it for the month. So few on the list that I'm embarrassed. But hey, there's been the Big Trial, meaning overtime, and shingles, meaning mind-numbing drugs. And also reading lots of unpublished stuff, which doesn't get to go on this list.

I also note that I seem to have gone for comfort reads here. And the new book is by my favorite author. Hmm, a clue. I've been feeling stressed.