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Inspiration Looks Like: “Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers” by the incomparable Kate Hopper

MAY 30, 2012 · 4 COMMENTS

So here’s the thing you should know. Two things, really:

1) I hate writing guides.
2) I hate anything expressly marketed for mothers.

I have my dumb reasons. They’re all coated in a sloppy lacquer of cranky generalization. I hate writing guides because they’re all smug and clever and bossy and fancy people with fancy titles always endorse them and OH BY THE WAY I AM STILL WAITING FOR TINA FEY TO ENDORSE MY OWN AS-YET IMAGINARY BOOK AND CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY IT’S TAKING SO LONG.

I hate mama marketing because motherhood isn’t exactly a “niche,” if you ask me. It’s freaking humanity, people. Plus I’ve watched the rise and subsequent cultural backlash against “mommy bloggers” and “mom writers” over the past ten years, the pooh-poohing of accounts of the creation and care and feeding and nurturing of the HUMAN RACE. I’ve witnessed the yucky icky monetization of the genre (if we even must call it a genre) and the withering of soul in writers who, yes, happen to be mothers.

I AM CONFLICTED AND TERRIBLY JADED, is what I am saying, Readers.

So when a literary marketing agent contacted me about featuring the book “Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers” on my blog as part of the author’s online book tour, I was skeptical.

Then I saw who wrote it: Kate Hopper.

And I knew I was in.

Kate and I overlapped for a few years in the 90s at Grinnell College in Iowa, where she was the roommate of my future sis-in-law. I remember Kate as a startling beautiful redhead, delicate and quick and funny, hard to pin down. She was complicated and smart and sometimes sad, quietly struggling. She made sense to me, though I didn’t know her well. I would only come to understand later that I was drawn to her because her soul’s particular challenges dovetailed with mine.

She left Grinnell to find another way, a better way for her. We reconnected a few years ago, and I was shocked and sorry to hear that she, too, had nearly lost her first baby, Stella, and her own life from preeclampsia. Her birth story was eerily similar to mine, and had stunned and shaken her to her core as well.

No one imagines preeclampsia when they concoct a “birth plan.” The pall it cast over my early days as a mother to Sophie was devastating. I sunk into a mire of depression. This is not how it was supposed to be, I remember repeating to myself, over and over, as I learned to care for my 4-lb. newborn.

Like Kate, I tried to find words to express the difficult beginning of my daughter’s life and this new life of mine, forever changed by motherhood. The words didn’t come easy. With motherhood, there’s the sense that it’s all already been said—far better—by someone else. The inspiration is there, but the encouragement and the energy and the time are harder to come by.

Like I said, Kate left Grinnell to find a better way, a better path. And, my God, has she ever found it. “Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers” has plenty of celeb accolades (Tina Fey, you missed out on this one, get in on the second printing), and they are well deserved. Here’s one that explains Kate’s book perfectly:

“Part writing workshop, part anthology, part mothers’ group between two covers, ‘Use Your Words’ is a readable, powerful call to the page for every woman in the process of giving birth to herself as a writer.” —Katrina Kenison, author of “The Gift of an Ordinary Day”

An award-winning writer and teacher, Kate has managed to create a book about writing for mothers—something I thought I was allergic to—that is both original and utterly inspiring. No smug-smug. No cloying crap. This is a book for writers and mothers and anyone who’s ever had a mother: which is to say, anyone.

Or perhaps I should say: anyone who cares or dares to remember, aloud or on a page, where humanity begins, where soul starts.

Kate dares to remember her own motherhood. She dares you, gently, to own your own words, to realize that you are the only one who can tell your story. Using pieces of her own story as well as perfectly chosen excerpts from assorted mother-writers, Kate has crafted a rare book that calls you to action as a writer and mother and, yes, WITNESS of your own life, of the lives around you.

The writing prompts are simple, powerful and compelling. I found myself engaged, completely, in the prose. I’d been stuck for months, my own writing stale and frustrating. A week with Kate’s book and I’d filled a notebook of my own. Her words loosened something in me, as a writer and a mama. I’m grateful for her, and grateful for her courage to document her own amazing path in life.

So get inspired. Your story? Guess what: it matters. And “Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers” will get it out of you and on the page. No kidding. Pick it up. Start anywhere, if that’s less scary. Pick a prompt, and go.

Here’s one. Respond to the following writing prompt from “Use Your Words” TODAY, May 30th, in 600 words or less, and email your submission to me at breedemandweep@gmail.com. Yeah, really. Now. Move it. Stop thinking so much. You tweet all the damn time. Do you know how SHORT 600 words and less is? If your submission wins, you’ll get a FREE COPY of “Use Your Words” and will be considered for (DRUMROLLLLLLL) THE GRAND PRIZE:

At the end of her bloggy book tour, Kate Hopper will choose the best piece for publication on Literary Mama (oooooooh!) for the first week of June, and Kate will also award the winning writer with a FREE hour-long phone consultation.

Double dog dare you.

Motherhood Models
Take a few minutes and describe your mother. If you didn’t have a mother growing up, did someone else play a mothering role in your life? Describe her. Maybe you didn’t feel you had a “good” mother and maybe you didn’t know anyone who fit this description. So what would a “good” mother look like? How did/does this ideal affect your own parenting? How have you parented your own child the same or differently?

P.S. I love you, Kate. Way to go, baby.