Is Your Mama a Writer?

You would think given my life with a four year-old, a two year-old and a baby due in a matter of weeks that I would spend most of my time reading such adorable books as IS YOUR MAMA A LLAMA, from which I have shamelessly adopted this post's title. But this is not the truth. Being a reader with an endless appetite, I sometimes consume so many books I find that I have, as though devouring a box of Cheez-its in a single gulp, read so many books in a month that I can't remember a single thing about any of them. Compulsive reading at its worst.

But I can remember the lessons of children's books. Like the llama searching for its mama among the many animals that are not at all llama like. My mother was not a llama. Nothing like it. She was and is a novelist whose twentieth novel came out last June (same time that her 19th came out in paperback and she finished the revisions on her twenty-first). Of course I've learned a tremendous amount from this Nancy Thayer about the craft and the industry and the profession, but it doesn't make it any easier to be the daughter of someone so prolific and successful. One example: my mother's 19th novel, SUMMER HOUSE, and my debut novel were published on the same day in June of 2009. In one of those anxious/curious/hopeless moments new writers know so well, I checked on Amazon to see my rankings. Then I checked my mother's.

She was visiting at the time, helping to take care of my two small children. I headed straight upstairs after my fateful visit to the computer and announced: "Mom, you're at 2000 on Amazon. I'm at two...hundred thousand!"

It begins to seem that my mama may be a llama, but I am something more like a turtle or a rabbit, any other animal in fact, for all our differences.

My mother, for one thing, always wanted to be a writer. She knew it as clearly as anything from the age of five and with unwavering certainty accomplished her goal and has sustained herself and her family with a lifetime of novels. I, on the other hand, always knew I wanted to be a mother. Other passions came in and out. But motherhood, I knew I wanted it, and many children too. My poor husband. When he met me he claims I said I wanted twelve, but this isn't true. I have only ever wanted six. A measly half-dozen.

Perhaps it's no coincidence then that my life as a published writer began with my life as a real mother. (As opposed to the mother of many dolls that I was for so many years of my childhood. Six Cabbage Patch Kids, for one thing.) I began writing THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME during my son's nap time when he was about nine months old. By the time he was a year-and-a-half, I had a two-book contract.

Still, sometimes even a llama isn't what it seems. Both being published--as opposed to my dreams of it--and being a mother--as opposed to my dreams of it--have been different than imagined. My mother has always made it look so easy.... Too, I imagined certain kinds of greatness that are statistical unlikely--you know, Oprah calling me in person to invite me on her show, choosing my book, that kind of thing.

The rewards? Well, as far as my novel goes, nothing has been more satisfying than hearing from readers who love the book, in particular mothers who have found it to be a wonderful, healing, humorous, wacky kind of salvation, as the book ruefully follows a new mother through the first nine months of mommy boot camp (for which there is no adequate preparation).

And the rewards of motherhood? Far too many to list and some possibly too standard to bother saying again (though they are all true). One of the greatest rewards though is seeing my own mother in a new light, as a person, as a woman. In my own motherhood, I can see clearly all the sacrifice and selflessness, what it meant to be dragged away from her desk (as a single mother raising two children alone), away from her novels, to take care of sick children, sad children, simply children.

It's as rich as anything, this mother stuff. Good enough for fiction in fact. Perhaps I should write a novel....

In the meantime, does anyone out there who has children feel like having them changed your own sense of (if not your relationship with) your mother? Anyone feel like after they had children they could forgive their mothers for basically everything? Did becoming a mother give you new insights into your own mothers?

Samantha Wilde is the author of THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME. Her next novel is due out in 2011. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two and 9/10ths children. Among her other pursuits besides novel writing and motherhood and voracious reading are chocolate consumption, yoga practice and teaching, and spiritual pursuits. She is, among other things, an ordained minister. You can visit her blog, wildemama.blogspot.com.