Real Words

A Better Woman : A Memoir of Motherhood is a book that I read in almost one sitting and a book that I’d recommend to any woman who writes. Now wait a minute, isn’t it supposed to be about motherhood and not about writing? Yes and no.

The book is the story of a woman who chose to have children later in life. She suffered some serious complications from the process and underwent some difficult times with her physical health as a result. That’s sort of what the tale is about.

However, what it’s really about is how this affected her writing. How motherhood affected her writing. How, as a writer, you are the mother to your creations and when you become a mother to a living being it greatly affects your ability to mother your creative works into being.

Author Susan Johnson has some poignant insights into what being a writer means and these are sprinkled all throughout the book. A few examples taken from her text:

“I believe now that I wrote myself into life. Before I learnt how to do it I lived as if blind, forever raging against the dark. Learning how to write illuminated life itself for me, letting me see fully for the first time its shape and dimensions. Before I learnt to write I did not know who I was.”

“I was forced to acknowledge all over again that writing is not life, or even truth, but merely fragments of both, imperfect reflections. There will always be moments and emotions which refuse to be caught, dark undertows which will never break the surface. Life will always exceed the writer’s inadequate grasp, no matter how radiant the genius.”

“All the while I have been writing, my story has been uncurling. Like your own, my story is still being told, and I am living the telling as I write it, breathing, trusting in the dark. I am writing backwards but I am living forwards, blind to my own end.”