As a gift to celebrate the birth of my twins (more than eight years ago!) a good friend gave me a book, Writing Motherhood, by award-winning writer and educator Lisa Garrigues. (Many thanks, again, R.!)

In the book, the author draws from her own efforts to balance motherhood with writing and shows that mothering “provides endless material for writing at the same time that writing brings clarity and insight to mothering.”

Some of her best advice applies to mothers or anyone else feeling emotionally and physically drained by the rigors and responsibilities of life:

[They ] arrived feeling physically exhausted and emotionally spent–in some cases “brain-dead”…they discovered that motherhood need not be an impediment to creativity. On the contrary, it can be a limitless source for story–a mother lode, if you will.

Write on!