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Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me

Pregnancy-related nausea usually ends after the first trimester.  That’s how it went when I was pregnant with my girl.  Bad for the first twelve weeks–and then it stopped.  This time around?  Not so much.  I’m at nineteen weeks, now, and the sickness just seems to have unpacked its suitcase and settled in for a good long  stay.

I wouldn’t mention this–no one wants to read the Endless Nausea Chronicles.  (Although it does have its kind of funny moments.  Like, my two year old girl has by now learned the phrases, “Mommy’s not feeling so well,” “Mommy needs to lie down,” and my absolute, utter favorite, “Mommy threw up in the trash can!”)

But last night lying in bed I started thinking about how pregnancy is not unlike writing a book.  You can throw yourself a bit of a pity party about the 24 hour “morning” sickness.  The backaches.  The headaches.  And so on down the line.  But then if you step back and think about all the couples out there who struggle with infertility, all the women who would give anything, suffer anything to be in your shoes . . .

You think about what a privilege it is to be allowed to carry and grow this tiny little life inside you for nine months . . . and you think, How could I possibly ever complain?

Writing a book is a bit like that.  At least for me.  There are days when it’s not as much fun as others.  Days when the writing just feels flat and uninspired and reaching my daily word-count goal seems like crossing the Great Gobi Desert on roller skates.  While herding cats.  Days when I realize that multiple chapters are going to have to be ripped out and written again.

But then I step back and think about what an incredible privilege it is to get to tell these stories.  As my job, no less.  How amazing it is that I get to live with these characters in their world for a few hours every day–have them talk to me and make me laugh and cry and totally surprise me with what they have to say.  And, well, how could I possibly ever complain?

Tags: writing

This entry was posted Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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