The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: parenting

  • What Kind of Mother

    I had thought I was doing right by Levi—I took him to church, to concerts, museums—but here is a severed rat leg telling me otherwise. (more…)

  • The Art of Never Making Time: A Cautionary Excuse

    Most days, I don’t make time for writing.

    I can’t write fiction during the day. I mean, I can. Under the right circumstances, if its calm and I have a chunk of time to myself. I know, I know — write even if you only have five minutes, but its just not me, especially when I’m rewriting and I have to both read and write. So, most often, I write at night, after Miles has gone to bed.

    I have all these fantasies of kicking the nocturnal habit and being productive when Miles goes off to school. I could get my work done in half the time it takes now. I could spend the rest of the day being social and active and writing fiction. Maybe I’ll also bake all day and my house will be clean and I will be effortlessly gorgeous. You know what, its my fantasy, let me have it.

    Ashley & Miles
    I’ve lost feeling in my left side.

    I’ve now been writing this post for over an hour. 250 words, because I had to help Miles unlock the bathroom door, get his breakfast together, help him make some toast, make myself some coffee — and then there was a tantrum, which has lead to him clinging to my entire left side crying, “Mommy, I’m scared of the ghosts, I’m scared of the owls, I’m scared of the scary trees, I’m scared of the spooky animals outside!”

    Now he’s decided that we’re not friends and I need to go to my room because I won’t let him play with my coffee. When I’ve ignored that long enough — yup. Imaginary injury, right on schedule. Apparently a Backyardigan hurt his foot.

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  • My Love/Hate Relationship With Non-Fiction

    I actually do write non-fiction to pay the bills. I write short Web articles about computers and the Internet, or computer-adjacent topics. Like this one about teens on the Internet, or this one about my favorite lady scientist, Ada Lovelace. They’re not very good.

    If there were an office hierarchy of freelance writers, I would be that guy who does his 9 to 5: just good enough not to be fired but not good enough to advance. I’m not ambitious or educated enough to branch my career beyond the Web. My writing is merely okay. What (in my incredibly unhumble opinion) makes me a good fiction writer is my blend of character and plot — the creative parts. Technically, I’m nothing to call home about.

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  • The More You Grow

    Last week I discussed how having a kid sort of disrupted my writing cycle, and this week I’m going to continue in a similar vein: how getting pregnant forced me to grow up a bit, and how growing up informed my writing.

    Before my son was born, I sort of did this party thing. There was a lot of drinking and poor life choices and loud music and it was all a blast. I even, sometimes, miss it. But given the narrow focus of my hobbies (video games, alcohol, and sex), my writing sort of reflected my immaturity. I wrote a lot of what I thought was some really deep, vaguely self-righteous, adult stuff about relationships and life that’s shallow in retrospect. It’s no wonder it never went anywhere.

    I’m not saying that kids don’t occasionally bust out wisdom and fantastic stories, but I, at least, was not one of them.
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