| Subject: Motherhood and writers' block |
Author:
Holly
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Date Posted: 09:08:00 03/21/04 Sun
In reply to:
Holly
's message, "Pencil drawings" on 08:07:14 03/21/04 Sun
I saw Shawn Colvin on, I think, Austin City Limits. Wherever it was, she was performing songs that were years old, and she told the audience that she had been having a hard time writing new material ever since she had her child.
I have had the same experience.
And I am only, after three years, just now awake enough to ask myself, "Why?"
Oprah had a guest who told the audience that the uterus is the seat of a woman's creativity. Could that be it? Does the very act of having a child drain, even exhaust, our creative reservoir?
Maybe it's physical exhaustion, but I don't think so. I used to do all sorts of exhausting things that put me square in the mood to write something down. One of my favorites: watching a particular kind of movie in drunkaround. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" is particularly good for this game - if you take a drink every time the characters take a drink, I guarantee you'll be channeling Martha by Act 3 - but "Thelma and Louise" works well, too, and has the added incentive of Brad Pitt. Shirtless.
Now THAT's inspiration.
Maybe it's simply that I have no desire to get drunk - or even have a nip. I'm loaded on motherly love, and I was pretty tired of my dark places before I got pregnant. But, surely, the fulfilled can write. We wouldn't have the Koran or the Bible if they couldn't.
Interruption definitely factors heavily. Some days, I can't finish a to-do list. But still.
And why is it mothers who suffer? Ever hear a guy say what Shawn Colvin said? Not me, and I've been watching XH1 and his friends, FIVE of whom have become fathers since XH1 and Samson showed that it is possible to go on being a musician after one becomes a father, continue to put out work that is just as good as, if not better than, the work they've been doing right along.
Maybe the answer is - oops, gotta go. Poopy pullup.
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