How I Went From Wannabe To Writer
By: Geek Mom
Tags: Writing, Writers Life, Writer

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

I went from a wannabe writer to a full-time writer in seventeen years. I know it sounds like a long time, but really, it wasn’t all that I did with my time.

While many people with writing degrees launch into a career path with writing involved, I didn’t.

I started off with an Education degree because well, it is all in the family. And if you wanted a job, you go and get an education degree so you can become a teacher. In my mind, it remained the only option I had.

It isn’t that I didn’t want to teach, I did. I love the innocent curiosity of children to learn and discover new things, so I found joy in my work as a teacher.

The writing was simply one of those things I would do someday, and I had no idea it would come when it did.

I had a book I wanted to write (a few of them, actually). Yet, I was busy with my babies and my job for years, that is, until life took a drastic change in a day.

I carried my son in my womb during my last year of teaching nearly eighteen years ago. Staying home really wasn’t in “the plan.” But, by chance, I decided to stay home and raise my baby instead of working full time. The writing was but a bleep on my radar and really did not factor into my full-time homemaker idea.

I had no idea what was to be revealed on the day of my son’s birth. All we knew was that he was a baby, we did not even know his sex. My husband at the time wanted it that way, so I refused to find out. I knew that I could not keep a secret like that. No, ignorance was bliss and the only way I wouldn't spill the beans.

My son seemed to develop normally in the womb as I went to all of my checkups, but my pregnancy was odd. I carried him abnormally, and I had so much amniotic fluid that it caused me to nearly pass out in the wrong positions. No one could explain why this was occurring, so we all just chalked it up to the strange and unusual pregnancy symptoms that typically occur.

Yet, odd or not, we still expected normal. However, on the day of my son’s birth, we landed in the Land of Holland, as they say, with a special needs little boy. He arrived limply into the world, silent and struggling to breathe.

Rushed into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, we knew then, something had gone completely wrong and God had an obvious plan here. I felt so unprepared in my skills for his birth and young life.

I was a teacher by trade, not a nurse, but I learned quickly to become one as my son’s full-time caregiver.

To say that nothing prepares you for the birth of a special needs child is an understatement. Most parents expect normal unless they are told otherwise. We simply had no idea.

We were shoved into a life of medications, tube feedings, oxygen tanks, and sleep apnea machines. Normal no more was our life, and I knew I would only rise to the occasion for my sweet little boy. I simply felt compelled to do everything I could for him.

My son was born with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a partial genetic deletion or double imprinting of chromosome 15. What it means is that my son had almost no muscle tone and could only move his eyes. The rest has unfolded over the years through a myriad of hormonal shifts in his body. PWS simply is an extremely complicated syndrome.

My skill set needed to change into caring for an infant full time who was unable to feed himself, move or even talk. So, I did what any smart girl would do, I researched everything I could online to understand my son’s care.

I searched for solutions to the many problems and issues that came up with my son’s health. And when the doctors had no solutions other than to monitor this frail baby in my lap, I began to write. I had to. I felt as if I had no other recourse but to write.

Writing cleared my head and gave me purpose. It helped me gain insight into something so earth-shattering as the poor health of your baby whom only God can fix.

The pain and confusion in my life had just turned into a new chapter that simply did not compute. Difficulty and tragedy do not usually make sense anyway, and my brain simply could not register the shift that had occurred in our lives without warning, at least not at first.

The long hours of tube feedings, therapies, and doctor appointments gave way to long naps on my son’s part. Since sleep was not something I gave into frequently during this season, naptime was when I heard myself and my thoughts.

So I began to write.

Oh, it was rocky at best. The words did not flow and I found my grammar was shaky. But, I persisted, and soon found myself becoming the writer I always wanted to be. It was purely unplanned and probably by design as I discovered who I really was.

I went from a wannabe writer to a mom blogger and Indie author. I found myself becoming a full-time caregiver to my special needs son overnight and launching my writing career at the same time. The homemaker idea shifted to meeting my son’s and my family’s needs, but it always included words on a screen.

While the special needs life wasn’t something I had planned, it was necessary to launch my written soul. Writing became a part of me, just as much as my breathing. It is as if God touched my soul so that I would write and be the mom and the woman He called me to be.

I had to write and I had to express what was locked up inside me as I poured my words on my screen.

Now, nearly eighteen years later, here I am, still writing. I write to grab a reader’s attention, sure, but I write to share the message I know I need to share.

Do I have room for change in my work? Well, of course. Writing remains a life-long process that ebbs and flows, gives and takes. We spend our lives trying to arrive at that perfect post, article, or book, only to fail miserably at perfection. It simply is not possible but we try anyway.

Perfection is an elusive friend. I am not longer the wannabe writer, but the real writer, paid or not, imperfections and all. I write because I am. I cannot stop myself.

What about you? Are you a writer? Do you hold a dream to write? Is there a seed within you to write a book or some other work? What happened to you in life that spoke so deeply to you that you just knew you had to write? What is it that needs to come out and bloom?

I adjure you to write. Write until you have nothing left to say then come back and write again. Practice, plan and create until you achieve the dream — the call to write your very own masterpiece that speaks what you need to say to the world.

You will never regret it.