Writing a Book Made Me Holler About Nutella

And other updates from the revisions vortex

Childe Hassam, At the Writing Desk, 1910

Hello everyone!

I know it’s been a bit quieter than usual here lately, and you know why: words, words, and more words, and 77K out of 80K are now written and revised, in fact! I’ve been trying to focus in hard on writing my book about the history of homeschooling in these past weeks as I approach my manuscript deadline — while also keeping up with my editorial work at Hearth & Field, homemaking, and homeschooling my own four young scholars. And while I’ve been doing this, I’ve also developed some thoughts that I’d like to share today.

When I was younger and had just left my intellectual community to move to a new state with my husband and one little baby, I listened too much to voices outside of my own. I listened too much to the idea that a woman’s path was clearcut and standardized, that there was only one way for a woman to serve her family — to be a completely stay-at-home mom. The problem wasn’t with these voices, friends — the problem lay squarely with me, both for ignoring their nuance and for nearly abandoning my own common sense as well. Life was hard in those years — colicky babies, husband working long hours, too little money and too little support. I often felt as though I was working as hard as I possibly could, and making every personal sacrifice that I could think of, and yet I was still failing my precious family. (Also my dissertation committee members, who were not seeing much in terms of dissertation chapters emerge from me yet).

In the past several years, however, I’ve grown stronger in my personal discernment and I now regret some of the sacrifices of time and energy and personal pursuits that I made in the first eight or so years of my motherhood. I don’t regret “staying home.” And I don’t regret any goods that these sacrifices brought to my family, of course; but I do regret that I did not think it was appropriate for my ideals to make space for my needs — my real needs, not just my wants or flights of fancy. I really didn’t understand how it was all supposed to work, and I latched onto the idea that if I did everything right and sacrificed myself, I’d become happier.

But as I’ve written before, a mother (or father) needs to know herself when she’s trying to improve things. If she tends toward laziness or selfishness, she will need to push herself to be more self-disciplined and giving. But if she is scrupulous and has lost her ability to rest or recreate even when the opportunity arises, she needs to slack off a little and relearn how to trust in God rather than thinking that her virtue and the well-being of her family are based primarily on her ceaseless striving. Which, really, can be construed as a sort of pride.

If your friends and your spouse are frequently trying to get you to do something to take care of or even just please yourself, and you keep saying “no,” then you know what I’m talking about.

(I did try to take care of myself in those early years, I really did — I just didn’t go far enough in the effort. And I sort of just wanted someone to swoop in — my mother, I suppose, who had passed away — and take care of me instead. But I was the mother by then, not the child, so that wasn’t going to happen.)

Anyhow, I have matured a bit more, now, I hope, and have in some ways come back into trusting myself — though I still have much to learn and to discern. One thing I have come to realize is that when I open up space in my life, God will fill it; but if I refuse to open space, he will not force me (and so the gifts he wishes to give remain ungiven).

So all through this book project so far — writing the proposal, writing the draft, submitting the proposal, accepting the contract, and now finishing up the manuscript — I have tried to remain open to the possibility that God might be calling me to use my time right now differently than how I might have presumed he would in the past. Sometimes we need to just trust that the task before us is one put there by God, rather than forcing our lives into imposed “shoulds.”

When I had babies and toddlers in the house, of course, that was no time (for me) to write a book. I did do the right thing in turning away from writing at that time, I believe (even though I probably grabbed on too tight to my homemaking and mothering focus, as I have just suggested). But the task set before me now — in addition to homemaking and homeschooling and other important things — is to put time, energy, and mental effort into this book.

So I have tried to be open to discovering what that might look like, instead of trying to keep everything in my life and home the same while also doing a big several-week push on revising the manuscript. It’s a limited season, this one, and I am coming to understand that it is appropriate for my family to support me in it, rather than for me to try to do it all by myself while asking for no help or accomodations.

Lest you think that I operate in a fairyland of high energy and low stress and that is why I can write this book, I wanted to share a little bit about what working on this manuscript has looked like for me in this past month. I am doing the task set before me, and my husband and children and friends have rallied around me as I make the attempt. It has been monumentally challenging, but also ethereally exciting. And I understand as I truly did not before understand the degree to which I am loved, and the degree to which I truly have willing and encouraging family and friends by my side.

I suppose it took opening up the space for a book to see it. God put the book project into the space, but I think he put this there, too.

Here are some illustrations of what writing a book looks like in this context:

It looks like…

• - A lot more take-out for dinner, and a stretching waistline to match. It’s okay; it’s just a season. Not everything has to be made from scratch, as long as most of our diet is whole and healthy!

• - Burning the candle at both ends, getting up early for the day with the kids and writing late at night.

• - Traveling away from the family overnight very occasionally in order to rebuild my intellectual community via conferences.

• - Letting the house get a little messier and doing the laundry in big bursts every few days instead of doing a load or two each day.

• - Letting the garden go to weeds.

• - The kids encouraging me both to work and to take breaks.

• - Yelling about the overuse of Nutella by a kid, but really because I’m overtired (see “burning the candle,” above).

• - A handful of dear friends each offering, unasked, to watch my children for an afternoon or two so I can focus in for a few hours on writing.

• - My willingness to actually let them.

• - Emails and phone calls and conversations with friends who never complain about my focus on the book right now.

• - My friends and family expressing pride in my work.

• - My children growing more generous.

• - My laptop splittling apart the same day my new laptop arrived.

• - Pausing my freelance writing for journals and magazines — and feeling grateful for the encouragement and understanding of the editors!

• - Resting in the not-knowing: What will this book lead to?

• - Resting in the not-knowing: Will anyone attack me for my conclusions?

• - Working on my fear of being misunderstood, and acknowledging that it is enough for me to write my own book rather than to try to write a book that will please everyone.

• - My husband talking through ideas with me nearly every night, and then staying up late himself to grade papers that he was not grading earlier because he was talking with me. And then giving over several hours some Saturdays to holding down the fort by himself while I write at a coffee shop.

• - A spiritual renewal after a few months away from Confession, thanks to the grace of God showing me what I need to support me during this demanding project (and through the help of a very compassionate priest).

• - The neighbor kids and my younger children playing for hours together almost every day, in and out of the two houses and the two yards, bringing me so much joy (and some free time to write!).

• - Friends noticing when I need a hug without me verbalizing it.

• - Less time ruminating, and more time doing. Praise God!

The manuscript is almost done now, and I look forward to having some essays to share with you soon as I get back into freelancing while the book is with the editors at Eerdmans. But in the meantime, I hope that this might inspire you to trust in a healthy discernment process in terms of what you are called to in the season you are in right now. There are important principles at work in life; primarily that we are each called to serve others, but also other things that are a bit more specific. But how that looks upon application can be unpredictable, even though there are, again, general ways that things tend to work. So I hope you will consider opening up some space in your own life in the weeks to come and asking God what he would like to give you to fill it.

What might this look like in your life? Are you locking down inside — or are you open to God’s call?

**Edited to add: my friend

Kerri Christopher

had the idea of comparing this essay to my the”Life Outside the Box” interview she did with me about a year ago. Kind of a neat idea to consider the same person in two different years! Here it is if you want to check it out:

Life Outside the Box: An Interview with Dr. Dixie Dillon Lane

Warmly yours,

Dixie