The pandemic has had a wide range effects on everyone.
For me, having had my daughter in October 2019, it’s hard to know what’s a result of living through a pandemic and what’s a result of being a new mom.
One of the better things to come out of the pandemic or being a mom (who knows at this point) is that my goals have come sharply into focus. I want to demonstrate to my daughter that it’s okay to have separate interests and do things outside our house and family. It’s good to pursue your interests. And a big part of that, for me, is getting back on track writing.
Maybe, oddly enough, my first path to publishing was in a book about my family. Somehow, I got the idea to write a kind of memoir/family history for one of my writing capstones during my Master’s program. To be honest, I haven’t been able to reread it since I published it. I’m the worst at rereading my own books.
It’s called Having Done All, Stand. This phrase graced the blackboard of my grandparent’s house for as long as I could remember (with a brief exception, when my grandmother broke her ankle. It was rephrased to ‘having done all, sit’). It’s a reminder, a metaphor, a bunch of things for our internal family.
I wrote it in 2010. Which literally seems like a lifetime ago. I’m struck by not only how different life is now, but also how many additions have come into play. And by how my daughter, and several of her cousins, would never recognize the title of the book.
This first foray into authorship and self-publishing was more academic than labor of love. I’m considering returning to update it, but lack the most basic of all things to do it: time. I’m hoping to work on other original works, like manuscripts and classes like one I just completed through The Loft Literary Center with Lisa M. Bolt Simons.
Keep your eyes open for what’s next, and make your plans. If anything, the pandemic has shown us that time is just an illusion, and there’s precious little of it to achieve things we want.
Meghan Hatalla, Minnesota Bibliophile 