Brain Fog

I’m coming upon my last four years of homeschooling my three boys. My two oldest have already graduated. One has already flown the coop, leaving me with the youngest who is just now ending his first year of freshman-level classes.

Somewhere in the space between my oldest and my middle sons’ graduations I realized that life as I had known it since 2007 was going to drastically come to a screeching halt. No more would there be annual trips to our local homeschool convention or hours spent planning out curriculum or schedules. Trips to football and baseball games slowly closed their own doors by way of “Honoring our Seniors” nights or the final stint of a championship game. I can remember the night where my husband turned in all his announcer equipment for our last high school football game. It was a bitter sweet reminder of a chapter ending for all of us. We were so proud of them, but also a bit sad too. However, as I have always told my boys when things change, “Onwards and upwards.” You can’t stay in the same status quo if you want to grow.

So, now that the two oldest are grown and gone, what did that mean for me? Prior to being a stay-at-home-mom I worked in book making and publishing. I loved it, but it was nothing compared to raising my kids. I really didn’t want to go back to an office job. I still don’t. The other option was to look at jobs which catered to my love of gardening and the outdoors. For about a week I entertained the idea of creating a Youtube channel focusing on just that, but as I loathe being in front of a camera I quickly abandoned that concept. The last option was writing. That sounds like writing was never my first ambition. It always has been, but I never thought I would be good enough to make a living from it so quickly pushed it aside.

In college I loved everything and anything to do with literature. I ended up with a B.A. in English literature and was close to finishing my minor in European history. Sadly, I got too burnt out on university to go back and finish. My goal then, as it is now, was to be a writer. Here, though, sets my dilemma. For the past week I have sat in front of my computer with the thought of creating a children’s story with all three of my boys being the central characters. If computer screens were pages, they would have papered my living room in a sea of white.

The second idea was to write a story about a young woman who gets transported to a world where she has to come to her own understanding of who she is without the trappings of a romantic entanglement. It’s an idea I got after reading “The Iron Fey” series by Julie Kagawa. One of those “what if” moments where the main character discovers she is half faery, but chooses not to let that define her. What choices would she make if her human father had more of an impact on her than a parent who had been a mere blip on her radar? I’ve written maybe one chapter of this story with literally nothing more escaping the vast nothingness that is my imagination.

One night I discussed this dilemma with my husband. I told him that my time as a homeschooling mom was quickly coming to an end. I wanted to be a writer, but was having trouble assembling my ideas into cohesive thoughts. I could spin a good yarn off the top of my head, but when it came to writing them down . . . crickets. When had that happened? I used to write all the time. I had to admit to him and myself that I was sorely out of practice. I needed to start writing again no matter what.

The following night he came to me and said, “I have set up a blog page for you to start writing.” Basically he gave me no excuse to not write, so here I am. I don’t know what is going to come of this project. I do know that these blogs are going to focus on stories I create as I work on honing my writing skills. I do want to explore a children story (set of stories?) that revolve around the characteristics of my three sons. I have not decided what that is yet, but hopefully I will soon. Maybe with a little convincing I can get my youngest son to draw images towards these stories as he has designs on becoming an artist one day.

So, here is my hope that in the next four years, while my youngest son finishes his high school years, I will have started to improve my abilities enough to tell full fledged stories. I think my husband called this site my “musings” so that is what they will be. Musings of my life, of stories I create for children, or for anyone who just wants to spend a little time watching a novice writer possibly (I can only hope) get better as she continues her craft.