How to start journal writing about motherhood

I've always written more when I travel than any other time. Travel breaks us away from our day to day routines and creates spaces in which we can write while we travel on planes, wait for trains, ride in cars, or sit in hotel rooms. To recreate those travel writing moments, I keep a portable journal in the glove compartment of my car. When my daughter falls asleep in the car, I drive to a scenic spot, park, and write. The car is a protected space: no dishes to do, no phones to answer, no laundry piling up. Here, I can write while I do the other important work of letting my daughter sleep. Give it a try!

Tracing spiritual development as you become a mother
Some mothers see themselves develop spiritually as they become mothers. Some return to long abandoned traditional religions. Some explore new, less traditional religious paths. Some embrace the power in images of mother goddesses, in Wicca, in nature. Some discover Zen and the art of nursing, childcare and household care. Some find the small mental spaces in the day -- while nursing, changing a diaper, sitting at a playground, driving a carpool -- ripe for meditation and reflection.

If you feel your spiritual life changed as a result of becoming a mother or if you want it to, then this style of journal might be for you. If so, write your spiritual journey, describing where motherhood is taking you. My challenges have been learning to feel the spaces between activities, to enjoy sitting still while nursing, to be able to find the zen of housework. Writing in my journal has helped me rediscover the value of meditation.

Writing your intellectual journey as a mother
In our culture of information overload, we can become confused by all the differing perspectives on parenting offered. This type of journal keeps track of what you learn and what you think about what you learn. For example, when you read a new parenting book, you can use the journal to summarize the main points, pull out quotes you want to remember, and reflect on what the book meant to you. When you attend a support group, parenting class or mother seminar, you can record what you felt was important in the information offered and then write your response to it.

When you have a discussion with another mother about motherhood, you can write about it, respond to it, reflect on it. In this manner, you chart your intellectual journey into motherhood, but most importantly, you process the information you are receiving. As I look back through the journal of my first year of motherhood, I see a lot of this going on as I tried to develop my own philosophies of mothering. Seeing my musings in writing helps me to see how much I have learned, and how much I still have to go.

Writing an observation journal as a mother
An observation journal can help you write more specifically by grounding your thoughts in real world details. The gaze in this journal is not focused inward but outward. You can go to a park, observe children playing, and write about it. You can sit and watch your baby play with a toy, and then describe what you see. You can go to a cafe and watch mothers interacting with children, and then reflect on what you've seen. An observation journal can also help you take textual "snapshots" of your child at different stages of development.

These snapshots can later be added to baby books, scrapbooks, or journals for your child. I keep my observation journal in my diaper bag so whenever I get a spare moment, I can describe what is around me. Often, I don't have enough time or energy while waiting at the doctor's office to write a poem, but I do have enough to describe the children playing on the floor in front of me. Later, I can reflect on my observations or use them to develop another piece of writing.

Writing an angst or anger journal
I keep an angst journal separate from my other journal that I hide in the deepest part of my underwear drawer. In this journal, I write all that I cannot say out loud. I rage about perceived injustices. I yell at my partner. I cry about what I have lost. I worry about my future, my child's future. I put my angst there, and after I finish writing it out, I feel cleansed, fresh, better able to face the day's challenges. If you can feel safe with a journal like this, write your feelings out! A good general rule: make sure everyone in your household agrees that journals are private spaces, so you can write without inhibitions. If this doesn't work for you, put your journal on the computer with a password or buy one with a lock. You have a right to a personal, private journal space.

Writing a body journal
In this style of journal, write about the changes in your body as you become a mother. You can describe yourself sitting in your rocker in the early stages of pregnancy, in the later stages of pregnancy, when nursing your child, when rocking your toddler to sleep, and when your child no longer sits on your lap. Same scene. Different time and body. Adoptive mothers can do the same. Even mothers who were never pregnant can experience significant changes in how they experience their bodies as they become mothers.

Describe yourself as you sit dreaming of the new child, then as you wait for word, then as you rock and feed your child. Either way, write from the body, describing your body and using the senses. As a person who stays too much in my head, I use this style to ground myself in my body, to write of and from the body, and to make better use of the five senses in my writing.

Writing a public events journal
Those politically and socially conscious moms among you might want to record what happens in the world during your child's early life. You can cut out newspaper clippings, then write your reflections on the events described there. These can turn into editorials or sections of a baby book, or stand alone as lessons to your child about your world view.

Writing a period of life journal
This journal has a clear beginning, middle, and end: built in narrative structure. You could record the story of an adoption, a pregnancy, birth, first year, a year in the life of a growing child, or the year leading up to a child going to college. You could describe your life as you survive a crisis. You could reflect on a past time in your life that made you the person you are today.

Choosing a format or formats

Considering audience
The blank page sits before you. You write your first sentence. You look back over the sentence, wanting it to be wonderful, terrific, fantastic. You want your favorite author to be in awe of that sentence. You want that sentence to bring you fame and glory and all the respect you deserve. You want that sentence to insure your immortality. That sentence could be ........

Suddenly, the sentence starts to sag under all that weight. It doesn't look as good as it first did. You start hearing former English teachers saying, "Where is your focus? What is your point?" You compare it to the first sentences of all the great novels you have ever read, and it comes up wanting. You wonder what your parents would say if they read that sentence. Wait, is that a grammar error in the second half?

You begin to rewrite that sentence, trying to make it better. You work long and hard on that sentence, until, finally, you get frustrated, confused, and tired. You quit, never writing the second sentence.

Considering audience often kills writing before it even begins. We think about how someone reading what we write will respond, and we think more about their response than our writing. Suddenly, we find ourselves stuck, not writing; we have censored ourselves.

Here is an exercise that can help: Once we name something, once we call it for what it is, it loses power over us. This is an exercise to help you give your censor body, form and voice, so you can get it out of you and out into the world:

• Make a list of words, phrases, sentences your Censor tells you.
  
• Write out all those negative comments your Censor says about you and your writing. For example, mine always tells me, "Well, that isn't literary enough" in a nasal sounding voice.
  
• Who says these things? Write a character sketch of your Censor. If it were a person, what kind of person would it be? What would be its characteristics? Habits? Customs? How would it relate to other people?
  
• Next, on a large piece of blank paper, draw a picture of your Censor (stick figure fine). What would it look like? What would it wear? What would it carry? What setting would it be placed in? Draw all this.
  
• Now, show and tell. Share your Censor with a friend, your partner, someone. Explain this Censor to someone else.
  
• Next, burn, tear up, fold up and put in a box, or in some other way exert yourself over your Censor. This can feel quite good.
  
• And, finally, write about your experience during this exercise. End with an explanation: despite all that the Censor does to stop you from writing, why do you keep writing?

Consider purpose
Consider the purpose of your journal writing . Your audience, at first, should only be you. And maybe that will be good enough. But maybe later you'll want to share parts of your journal with others. Think about what you would like to do with your writing. If you decided to revise informal journal projects to share with others, here are some possibilities:

• A gift journal for a child from a mother.
  
• Baby books
  
• Scrapbooks
  
• Family chronicles
  
• Photo albums with written descriptions
  
• Gift books for family
  
• Published writing

Now, WRITE! First, go buy a new, blank journal, something you like. Then scribble on the first page or start four pages into it to help you get over the idea that the first pages must be a profound introduction to all that you are as a mother and a person. Next, read through the suggestions below, then write in your journal about yourself as a writer. You could do a history of your life as a writer (or not a writer). You could compare and contrast the different journal styles to help you decide what ones you like, which ones you don't think will work for you. You could write about what keeps you from writing.You could write over and over again, "I don't know what to write" until something else occurs to you. Anything! Just write!

Suggested readings
Leaving a Trace: The Art of Transforming a Life into Stories by Alexandra Johnson.
Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
"On Keeping a Notebook" by Joan Didion (I found it in Life Writing by Winifred Bryan Horner)