It got me thinking about just how similar being a parent is to being a writer. Here’s why:

ONE

I love my son unconditionally – even when he’s been naughty.

I love my WIP unconditionally – even when it’s been naughty and won’t finish a scene or keeps changing things

TWO

My son is extremely unpredictable – apparently he already has a mind of his own

My WIP is extremely unpredictable – it is prone to change its mind suddenly, adding an unexpected twist or killing off an entire character mid scene

THREE

My son drives me to insanity – when he doesn’t know the right words to tell me whats wrong

My WIP drives me to insanity – constantly when it halts suddenly in the middle of a scene and refuses to tell me how it ends and all I can do is sit and wait patiently until it decides to play ball

FOUR

My son exhausts me – keeping me up in the middle of the night

My WIP exhausts me – keeping me up in the middle of the night either writing it, or waking me up having thought of ideas

FIVE

I am extremely proud of my son – every time he does something new or smiles, or breathes for that matter!

I am extremely proud of my WIP – writing novels is hard work, and I am really proud to say that I amongst my crazy life I still find time to write actual novels

SIX

My son costs a shit load of money!

My WIP costs a shit load of money – I buy software and dozens of ‘how to write books’ thinking it will help me write better, not to mention the obsessive notebook collection I have going or the expensive research field trips!

SEVEN

My son makes me repeat myself constantly – ‘eat with your mouth closed, it’s YES not yeah, don’t pull the cats ear…’

My WIP makes me repeat myself constantly – remember those pesky crutch words I spoke about? in the secret to the quickest edit you can do? There are just some words that I can’t help but repeat!

EIGHT

My son makes me shout at him – when he’s been very very naughty like when I picked him up from the childminder the other day and he bonked another kid on the head and then tried to bite his leg!

My WIP makes me shout at it – in frustration when it won’t play ball or it made me write something silly AGAIN, or tricked me and made me rewrite a chapter for the 5th time.

NINE

My son needs a lot of attention – he needs love, and kindness and story time.

My WIP needs a lot of attention – spent tapping away mindlessly at the keyboard, or hours researching or editing.

TEN

My son is a cause for celebration – the first time he walked, his first word… hopefully his first poo on a potty!

My WIP is a cause for celebration – and toasting the end of the first draft – the end of the first edit… hopefully one day…publication?!

If you’re a parent – how does your WIP compare to parenthood? Or if you’re not a parent – what does your WIP do to you?

This marks the last day of NaNo – if you participated – did you win? Was your target 50K? 

Next week, because NaNo is over I’m back to normal posts deconstructing the writing process see you then

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WORST WEEK OF MY LIFE PEOPLE!!!

Babies apparently don’t appreciate this annual gift we are given of extra sleep, in fact, not only do they reject the gift, they completely ignore it, choosing instead to get up at the usual time (now an hour early) the joyous hour of 5am. Fuck the worm, I have never been a morning person. I choose to be a late bird, why oh why did my son not inherit this precious piece of me?!

This was genuinely me trying to get out of bed at 5am to get the boy this morning.

The thing is, he is doesn’t just affect the morning its also affecting the evening. Instead of going to be at 7, like normal we get to half past 6, and he goes all

Its horrendous. We have tried everything from distraction, to TV, to extra milk, and out and out bribery! nothing is working. So tomorrow we have asked friends to come round to try and distract him between half six and 7, in the vague hope ‘new faces’ might be exciting! sigh. My caffeine intake this week is actually offensive!

Anyone else suffering with Daylight Savings Time?

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Like the TV advert, the wife and I decided to set up an email account for our newborn  son to open on his 18th birthday. We will spend the next 18 years sending letters, photos and videos to him in secret, so that his life with us is chronicled. I thought you may like to read my first entry.

My Dearest A,

You are currently my little sleeping beauty upstairs in your crib. I am hoping you are reading this on or around your 18th birthday, as we have now given you the password and account details for this account.

I want you to know, wherever you are, wherever we are, I am immensely proud of whoever you have become. I love you with all my heart, you are my world.

‘The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.’ Jane Austen.

 

You’re 11 and a half weeks old, just shy of 3 months old. I look at you now and wonder how you came to be. It feels like you have been here my entire life, and yet, for just a moment, and already I love you with such immensity that it takes over my entire being.

I am still at home on maternity leave with you at the moment and will be for a few more weeks. I savour every moment of time I spend with you, because I will be at work soon and then every moment I spend away from you will be a moment wasted.

The best parts of my day are when you smile at me, or when I get to watch you learn something new. Your making lots of noises these days, and beginning to form a real laugh, and I can’t help but giggle every time you do; your learning to sit – although you scream in protest every time we practice, you much prefer standing up. You love your door bouncer and finally your starting to learn to roll over.

I am talking to my 18 year old son… I will be 44 by the time your 18. Oh my god, that seems like a life time away, I can’t imagine what I will be like at 44, or who I will be, let alone who you will be.

What do I hope for you? Firstly and most importantly I hope you are happy. I hope you have had a wealth of experiences, good, bad, naughty and ugly! I hope you are safe and well. I hope you have studied hard, and played harder, I hope you have loved and lost and loved again and I hope you have travelled.

Every parent wants their child to be a doctor, lawyer, pilot or some other well paid career. But I just hope that you have found something that will make you happy for the duration of your career, I don’t care if your a ballerina, a seamstress, a chef or a boxer. As long as you work hard you will be the best you can be, but enjoy whatever you choose to do in life, because life is too short to be unhappy…. but secretly I do hope you have chosen to go to university! I met your mumma at university and I am sure I speak for her too when I tell you how much fun we had at university, even during the all nighters trying to finish assignments.

I hope you enjoy the next 18 years of emails! It might take a day or two to get through!

Happy Birthday baby boy, I love you always and forever, mummy. xxx

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We went to our first of two antenatal classes the other night, and boy did it start awkwardly!

We rocked up fashionably late – by total accident – we both despise being late, and the wife had been sent home from work as she was in excruciating pain from her bad back still from the car accident – Anyway – she slept most of the day away after swallowing a load of painkillers the doc had given her. After an epic three hour snooze and with barely 30 minutes to get to class I finally plucked up enough courage to wake her from what can only be described as some kind of zombie death sleep! I really didn’t think I would be able to wake her!

We rocked up – slightly late – with EVERYONE gawping at us, as we were CLEARLY the only gays in the village! and we awkwardly sat in the last two remaining seats, right in front of the strangest tutor I have ever witnessed.

This tutor – paler than a vampire, with an accent that was so confused she must have lived in every country in the world.

During the course she brandished an alarming wooden plank that depicted the dilation of the cervix which she then proceeded to push a babies head through the 10cm circle… to which all the women began to cringe slightly and I tried not to whimper and sob in utter despair!

I was a bit disappointed in the class to be honest – I only found out one new piece of information about some vitamin K that the doctors give babies straight after birth. The wife was like… “what do you expect your a geek….” she has a point!

Anyway – What this class taught me, is that I absolutely, love my wife, and wouldn’t be without her.

The tutor split the class into ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ – so my poor wife made the awkward journey over to sit in the ‘boys’ circle to discuss how they were going to support their wives.

WELL….. having been surrounded by women for so long – I had completely forgotten how utterly useless men can be.

Suggestions they came up with included – making sure you had the take out number because they deliver to the maternity unit – clearly thinking about their stomachs.

When I suggested that they should pack the hospital bag because they would be rooting around it as we were going to be in no state to look for shit one of the men turned round and said

“thats the womens job” – DICK HEAD.

This made me cross so I verbally dropped him on his arse and everyone giggled.

Anyway – this continued, and all the good suggestions that they had come up with I would look over to my wife and mouth “did you say that?” and she would give me that cute little smirk she does and nod….

Sigh, swoon, so proud. bloody love my wife!! <3

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