For writers of all genre who want to write, and the readers who love them. Find what you want to know.
Moving Mountains
By Jennifer L. Doloski
My eight-month-old had decided, yet again, to forgo her afternoon nap. Her older sister dutifully napping, Anna seemed to know that she had me all to herself and wasn’t going to waste that opportunity by sleeping through it. Spreading a blanket on the den floor, with several pillows behind her as tipping insurance, I turned her loose with a shape sorter, a cloth house with four buggy looking cloth friends, and a few favorite rattles. Thanks to her recently acquired skill of being able to sit unassisted, she was investigating some of these toys for the first time. In the midst of editing one article, composing another, doing research on the Internet, and listening to some “mood music,” I had hoped to move mountains during nap time.
Side-by-side, we worked independently for some time. My work was punctuated by an occasional sigh as I waited for a page on the Internet to load or as I struggled with word choices. Her work, on the other hand, was punctuated by squeals of delight as she realized that the top came off of the shape sorter. I turned to find her surrounded by shapes and munching on a square, grinning at me over the drooly, plastic cube.
Just enough time had passed for me to really focus on what I was writing. I could hear Anna playing beside me, though her squeals were beginning to sound more like whimpers. I knew eye contact would end it all for me, so I plugged away, wanting desperately to have some finished product to show for my efforts.
With a disgusted grunt and an unskilled arm, Anna sent a soggy toy in my direction. Whimpers turned to wails, and I finally gave in to her requests for a playmate. As I sank to the floor, she gave me her jack-o-lantern grin even before the last tear had managed to trickle down her cheek. There we sat in a patch of afternoon sunlight, surrounded by toys, and her big sister was nowhere to be seen. She had won.
Scooping the shapes back into their bucket, I set the sorter aside and put the bug house between us. On the roof, a bright orange sunshine smiled at us. Lifting the sun, I revealed an opening through which we could see the buggy friends nestled inside. Anna leaned over for a closer inspection of the house. She tasted it, she opened and shut the sunny flap, and she peered into the hole beneath the flap. She did not, however, attempt to retrieve the toys within.
I reached through the hole and giggled at the startled look on her face as she watched my hand disappear. When it emerged with a polychromatic snail, she looked from my hand to the hole quizzically. She leaned over, peered into the hole at the remaining friends, and sat up with a sigh. She had just learned how holes work.
We spent the remainder of that afternoon on the sun-warmed den floor exploring that little house.
“Open,” I said. Anna squealed once again, raising the sunshine flap.
“Close. Open. Close.” She shrieked in response to my chants.
I produced and replaced each buggy friend, and she finally decided that the hole was okay by her and tentatively stuck her chubby fingers into its depths.
And the work piled on my desk waited for another day. There will be, I know, afternoons where the naps are long. There will be time enough to move my mountains then.
At 1:30 p.m. the nap time race begins. With a kiss, I lay the baby in her crib. I shut my elder daughter’s bedroom door and sprint to the den. For the next stretch of time, 45 minutes on a bad day, 2 hours if the alignment of the planets is just so, I get to be a writer. When the nursery monitor cackles I send my muse home for the day and become Mommy once more.
For as long as I can remember, except for when I was three years old and wanted to be a giraffe, I have wanted to be a writer. First came college, and then full-time employment, and then marriage. I dabbled in writing much as a stifled artist might doodle potential masterpieces in the margins of her appointment book. Then came motherhood. At last, I thought, home with my children, I might actually begin to write.
And begin I did. Beginning was never a problem; I had ideas clawing their way out of my mind and onto paper. Finishing was another story. Teething, nightmares, thunderstorms, and dirty diapers took turns scaring my muse to the far recesses of my mind. While I had some success writing for the local newspaper and published a few essays online, I began to think that motherhood and dreams of a writing career were not compatible.
I was seven months pregnant with my second child when I entered a short story competition. Having been given a prompt, I had twenty-four hours to write and submit an entry. The prompt had to do with shortcuts. As I stared at the computer’s blank screen, the baby within me began a gymnastics routine. Using my condition as inspiration, I wrote a tale of childbirth from the unborn’s perspective, the shortcut being a c-section delivery. I had no experience with surgical childbirth, as my first daughter was born after an uncomplicated labor and delivery. To tell my tale, I incorporated details from friends’ experiences and television documentaries. I was ecstatic when I won first place in the contest and publication on the sponsor’s web site.
I went into labor ten days early. Things were progressing normally, but the doctor became concerned when monitoring of the baby indicated fetal distress. We were discussing the situation and our options when the baby’s heart rate plummeted. The doctor ordered an emergency c-section and my second daughter was born nine minutes later.
It was only a few hours later that the realization hit. Anna and I had written her birth story weeks before she was born. Perhaps my muse wanted to show me that motherhood is not hindering my ability as a writer; it is shaping me.
AGENTS & EDITORS
- 60 Calls for Submissions in June 2021 – Paying markets
- Agents: Knowing When To Hold One and When To Fold
- Getting Offers from Multiple Literary Agents
- Literary Agents List
- Preditors and Editors
- Publishing, Writing Terms, Acronyms
- Tips for a Successful Editor Appointment
- Want More? Here’s How to Get It
- What NOT to Do When Beginning Your Novel
- Windup for the (Story) Pitch
- Write the Perfect Book Proposal
CALLS FOR SUBMISSION
- 2023 MAR Calls for Submissions
- 2023 FEB Calls for Submissions
- 2023 JAN Calls for Submissions
- 2022 DEC Calls for Submission
- 2022 NOV Calls for Submission
- 2022 OCT Calls for Submission
- 2022 SEP Calls for Submission
- 2022 AUG Calls for Submission
- 2022 JUL Calls for Submission
- 2022 JUN Calls for Submission
- 2022 MAY Calls for Submission
- 2022 APR Calls for Submission
- 2022 MAR Calls for Submission
COMPUTER TIPS
- ASCII Characters
- Building Your Web Site and Doing It Right
- Don’t Be a Victim-Scams, Identity Theft, Urban Legends
- Don’t Spread Scams
- How to Annoy Your Website Visitors
- Knowing Your Target Audience
- Stopping Viruses from Propagating Through Your Email
- The Top 10 Email Errors
- Word Processors Through Time: Before MS Word & Google Docs
FORMATTING & GRAMMAR
- Achieving 250 Words / 25 Lines Per Page
- And Sammy, too? Oh, No!
- Changing Double Hyphens to EM Dashes in Word
- Edit Easier
- High Hopes–Avoiding Common Mistakes
- Misused Words
- Navigating In Your Novel
- Proofreaders Marks
- Research Links
- Rules for Writers
- Slang and Jargon Souces
- Tightening Your Manuscript and Trimming the Word Count
INSPIRATION-MOTIVATION
- A Dream Realized
- Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work
- Finding Time to Write
- Five Ways to Promote Yourself
- Fun Inspirations 1
- Fun Inspirations 2
- Fun Inspirations 3
- Fun Inspirations 4
- How Not to Procrastinate
- How to Quit Writing and End up on the Bestseller Lists
- Love to Write: Here Is How You Can Build Your Career
- Making Time for Self-Care While Running a Business
- Moving Up the Rejection Ladder
- Pop Quiz: Who Are You?
- Rules for Writers
- The Art of Being Rejected–475 Words
- The Juggling Act
- The Literary Food Chain
- Write Better Naked
- Writer’s Conferences Do You Really Need To Attend?
- Writing By Moonlight
MARKETS
- 35 Online Work Ideas to Earn Good Money Whilst Studying
- Copyright Primer, Know Your Rights
- EBooks-Fears to Possibilities
- Finding Markets Fiction and Nonfiction
- Freelance Writing 101
- How To Be a (Shiver) Reporter
- How To Market Your Book After You’ve Written It
- Love to Write: Here Is How You Can Build Your Career
- Magazine Links
- Making Money As a Corporate Freelancer
- Market News–All Genres
- Newspaper Writing Resources
- Path to Self-Publishing Success
- Publishing, Writing Terms, Acronyms
- Science Writing Organizations
- Selling to Children’s Markets
- Submission Tracking
- Submitting to UK Markets
- Syndication 101
- To Specialize, or Not to Specialize?
- Why E-Books?
- Writing Groups List
- Youth Writing Markets
PUBLISHING
- 60 Calls for Submissions in June 2021 – Paying markets
- Copyright Primer, Know Your Rights
- How To Market Your Book After You’ve Written It
- Love to Write: Here Is How You Can Build Your Career
- Making Money As a Corporate Freelancer
- Path to Self-Publishing Success
- Publishers Websites
- Publishing, Writing Terms, Acronyms
- Submission Tracking
- The Great Limbo Mystery Question
VIDEO & STREAMING LINKS
WRITING TOOLS - APPS
- Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work
- Free AI Tools That Can Be Used In Business Writing
- Helpful Books
- Knowing Your Target Audience
- Magazine Links
- Newspaper Writing Resources
- Reconsider Hand Writing
- Research Links
- Slang and Jargon Souces
- Unblocking Your Muze
- Word Processors Through Time: Before MS Word & Google Docs
- Writing Groups List
WRITER'S LIFE
WRITING CONTESTS
WRITING CONTESTS
.
• ALL WRITING CONTESTS
- 2023 MAR Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2023 FEB Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2023 JAN Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 DEC Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 NOV Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 OCT Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 SEP Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 AUG Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 JUL Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 JUN Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 MAY Contests, Workshops, Webinars
- 2022 APR Contests, Workshops, Webinars
ABOUT WRITING CONTESTS