http://laurenmcbrayer.com/home daily 1.0 2022-11-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1621011603167-7TM5C0XXX1D4E9L0L2V8/tuxpi.com.1621011538.jpg HOME Hi! Glad you found me. I’m obsessed with birds, addicted to sunsets, prone to hyperbole, always. Like a House on Fire is a story that is very close to my heart. It’s not a memoir. You can keep up with me here, or follow me on Instagram. If you’d like to read some essays I’ve written, you can find those here. If you’re looking for the three Young Adult novels I wrote under my married name, Lauren Miller, click here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1628086761243-GQI951VJJ7SACJ5H1P9E/Cover+-+LikeaHouseonFire_5.13.jpg HOME - On sale now Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org | Village Well Books One of The Washington Post’s “10 Noteworthy Books for April” One of Good Housekeeping’s “20 New Books to Add to Your Summer 2022 Reading List” One of New York Post's Best New Books to Read The July 2022 Belletrist book club pick An electric and seductive debut novel about a woman at a turning point in her life, and what happens when she discovers the spark that makes her feel whole again. After twelve years of marriage and two kids, Merit has begun to feel like a stranger in her own life. She loves her husband and sons, but she desperately needs something more than sippy cups and monthly sex. So, she returns to her career at Jager + Brandt, where a brilliant and beautiful Danish architect named Jane decides to overlook the “break” in Merit’s résumé and give her a shot. Jane is a supernova—witty and dazzling and unapologetically herself—and as the two work closely together, their relationship becomes a true friendship. In Jane, Merit sees the possibility of what a woman could be. And Jane sees Merit exactly for who she is. Not the wife and mother dutifully performing the roles expected of her, but a whole person. Their relationship quickly becomes a cornerstone in Merit’s life. And as Merit starts to open her mind to the idea of more—more of a partner, more of a match, more out of love—she begins to question: What if the love of her life isn’t the man she married. What if it’s Jane? PRAISE “This raw, emotional debut novel explores the disquiet of middle age, the nature of female friendships and the joy and burden of living authentically.” –The Washington Post “Jane injects [Merit’s life] with a jolt of electricity that’s more than a work friendship, it’s a chance to imagine a different kind of life. This story of female relationships will spark your own imagination, too.” –Good Housekeeping “If it’s not already on your reading list, by all means, add lesbian writer Lauren McBrayer’s debut novel Like a House on Fire….McBrayer deftly handles the subject matter and readers are sure to find themselves rooting for the main characters as they embark on their potentially treacherous journey.” –Grab Magazine “With a zippy pace, punchy dialogue, and beautifully crafted sentences that manage to capture the tenderness of longing and self-discovery, Merit and Jane’s love story feels both realistic and escapist, a queer romance done right.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Compelling…An exploration of love that not only brings steamy physical satisfaction but also allows Merit to become vulnerable and honest with herself and her partner for the first time. Recommended for readers who enjoy introspective relationship fiction.” –Booklist “Wise, witty, and tender, Like a House on Fire is a multilayered examination of connection and desire that artfully tackles the question: what if the person you are isn’t the one you set out to be? It’s beautifully written with deep empathy and vivid characters. I was utterly seduced and satisfied by this book.” –Camille Perri, author of When Katie Met Cassidy and The Assistants “Like a House on Fire is an un-put-downable novel about motherhood, middle-aged malaise, questioning identity and the choices women are forced to make. I found parts of myself on every page; every woman will find herself along the way as they turn the pages of Merit’s life and get lost in McBrayer’s raw, emotional and stunning prose. And the ending… well, I’m still shaking. Every woman should read this book. Alert your book club, this one will bring out the discussion, the confessions and the wine.” –Elyssa Friedland, author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays daily 0.75 2022-06-21 http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/in-finishing-my-book-i-rewrote-the-story-of-my-own-life monthly 0.5 2022-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/d815f033-cb0e-4d1b-ba07-13b57a3861ed/IMG_3388.jpg essays - 6.21.22 - Vogue: In Finishing My Book, I Rewrote the Story of My Own Life I’d never met a metaphor I didn’t like. I’d recently started going to the beach each night to do something I called “death practice,” an exercise that involved watching the sun disappear behind the ocean while I envisioned myself taking my final breaths. It was late summer in 2020, and it seemed perfectly appropriate to be imagining my own death every day. The world was in the midst of a pandemic. I’d just turned 40. And, though I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, my marriage was bleeding out. […keep reading on Vogue.com…} http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/the-story-that-saved-me-on-writing-my-way-out-of-a-life-that-no-longer-felt-like-mine monthly 0.5 2022-06-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/f96072e6-ac08-4057-9dd3-5edf0b4ffe43/lit+hub.jpg essays - 5.4.22 - The Story That Saved Me: On Writing My Way Out of a Life That No Longer Felt Like Mine The clouds were dark over the ocean as I sat next to my husband on a beach chair in Mexico. I’d been feeling a vague sort of apprehension all weekend, and now it was Sunday, the day before we were supposed to fly home. The approaching storm struck me as an appropriate ending to the four-day vacation we’d taken to celebrate my thirty-ninth birthday. We’d bickered through most of it. And now forty was coming for me. Black clouds seemed about right. {Keep reading on Literary Hub} http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/cribs-and-carpet monthly 0.5 2022-06-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1600746281676-Q1T0FDRBUWQMAZ4IECJ4/120039343_3534968519881174_1590034472124841095_n%281%29.jpg essays - 9.21.20 - Cribs & Carpet The year I turned 25, I got married, changed my last name, moved to L.A, and started my first "real" job. The year I turned 30, I had my first baby and wrote my first novel. The year I turned 40, I was hurled into Pandemia. I will never know if the feelings of utter alienation I felt when I was 25 were because I had a new husband and a new last name or because I was living in a new city and working my butt off at a new job I knew on day 2 I did not love. I will never know if the exhilarating euphoria I felt when I was 30 was because I'd just become a mother or because I’d just become a writer. And now, at 40, I don't know how to account for the fact that I have transitioned from a person who once said goodbye to the crib that held her three babies (this goodbye involved my speaking in a hushed tone to a chipped wood frame and thanking it for holding my sweet children and sometimes their mother night after night without collapsing under the weight of our sleeplessness) to a person who looks at the carpet that was just ripped out of the bedroom where all three of those children slept as babies -- carpet that was beneath our feet and knees for a decade of moments I don't ever want to forget -- and thinks, "Huh. Well. That's over!" and continues on with her day. Would I have outgrown my nostalgia naturally had it not been for the pandemic, or did six months of surreal timelessness rip it from my clenched fists? Either way, the overriding sentiment I’m feeling this year is ephemerality. I’m learning to hold it all loosely. The plans, the future, the carpet. But not each other. Let's hold on tightly to that. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/2020/9/21/92120 monthly 0.5 2024-11-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1600745938300-OPU53XMAPMOL8CVS4PMG/119789506_699702533959869_4662915764050253977_n%281%29.jpg essays - 9.15.20 - Surrounded by Stories A year ago, on my drive to the White Hart Inn for a writing retreat I very desperately needed, I stopped at this beautiful white church in Sharon, CT, and walked among the headstones in the quiet cemetery behind it in tears. I don’t know why I stopped. I don’t understand completely why I was crying. I imagine it had something to do with my lifelong conversation with the Divine about the meaning of life and the inevitability of death. I was approaching a milestone birthday. My littlest wasn’t a baby anymore. I’m sure I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I felt, probably, alone. But as I walked among these headstones, I felt distinctly that I was not, in fact, alone. I felt the presence of the Divine, yes. But I also felt, palpably, the communion of saints. Not the venerated ones that have Wikipedia pages. But the ordinary souls whose bodies were buried beneath me. I was surrounded by stories that afternoon; stories I will never know of lives that were inherently beautiful, most definitely complicated, and poignantly finite, like all of ours are. The humid fall air felt thick with the human condition that day, and it made me feel held on all sides by strangers who surely asked the same questions about life and death that I was. Lately there has been so much division, so much us vs them, and I can’t help but think that maybe we’d all behave a little better if we walked around a cemetery every afternoon and remembered how all-in-this-together we actually are. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/on-obstacles monthly 0.5 2020-09-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598726794149-9EB4PGV91J7IVJKHV8MC/63B1B9E7-2B4B-4D49-8C96-57534428CB4A.JPG essays - 8.28.20 - On Obstacles These two creatures are my biggest obstacles to creativity. I could pretend that parenting two mildly insane humans with Y chromosomes has made me a better writer but that would be an aggressive lie. They have made me a more tired, more grumpy, less hygienic writer. But a better one? Yeah, no. We all have our own obstacles to creativity. Mine are my sons who speak in outside voices all the time and never sleep, the uncomfortableness of the chair I sit in to write, and my day job (which I love very much! Please don’t fire me!). I used to imagine a day when someone would pay me lots of money to write full time and I’d bang out words for eight hours a day in a luxury ergonomic chair in an beautiful, neutral toned private office (with a view!) I don’t anymore. Ten years in, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I might always be sitting in a plastic Adirondack chair when I write. I’ve accepted — honestly with a fair amount of joy — that committing to the creative life means working through the obstacles not waiting until they go away to “become a real writer.” You’re a real writer wherever you are, even with the crazy kids and the cheap chair and the day job you can’t afford to quit. Embrace it. Own it. And invest in some noise canceling headphones, stat. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/personality monthly 0.5 2020-08-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598566876332-B58KC9CMMKU6ZRBY0MSH/Screen+Shot+2020-08-27+at+3.19.04+PM.png essays - 8.26.20 - Personality My kids have “personality.” This is the euphemism people who know them use instead of saying what they really think, which is something more like “loud, sometimes funny, often obnoxious, totally devoid of manners, and occasionally endearing.” I thought by having three of them I would end up with one agreeable, quiet, docile child. I did not. My “middlest” is what uncharitable people would call “a piece of work.” (I am uncharitable, so I call him that.). He is, unquestionably, a challenging child. He is complicated and stubborn and refuses to brush his teeth. Or wear a shirt. He does not make me look like a great parent. But you know what? He would make a great character in a book. Today I’m doing “asynchronous learning" with him (this is another euphemism — this one refers to the large swaths of time where no one is teaching my kids anything but they are allegedly in school because someone has assigned them packets of work we might be able to complete if our printer worked). To be very clear, this time together is important and sweet and MAKES ME WANT TO PLUCK MY HAIR OUT STRAND BY STRAND. But I don’t. Instead, I smile and I help him and in my head I imagine that I am not the main character of the story I am in. I imagine that maybe everything doesn’t revolve around me and my schedule and the long list of things I have to get done. I pretend that I am a supporting character and that my son is the protagonist, a little boy with big feelings and big ideas and a very, very big voice who will one day do something awesome with his one great and wonderful life. (And then I pour myself a drink at 2pm because this level of patience and restraint deserves a reward). http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/magic-of-metaphor monthly 0.5 2020-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598415427337-IXMA3WTY99SZVUDIJC1P/IMG_1535.jpg essays - 8.25.2020 - The Magic of Metaphor I am a flower. Not a fragile flower. A strong, wild, sometimes beautiful, often brave bloom. I need water. I need sunlight. I need to be connected to a vine that runs deep, a vine that’s connected to a root that bad weather won’t tear down, a vine that connects me to other living things and to life itself. I won’t last very long if you take me away from that vine, if you separate me from the other flowers I’ve been planted with. My connection to them is what keeps me alive. I am a mortal thing. I was born from a seed and I grew and I am growing still but i am also already dying. I am vulnerable to disease that could end my life sooner than I’d like. I am susceptible to violence. I bruise easily. I can be cut down. I bloom when the day is warm and bright, and I’m prettier when you’re smiling at me. I am capable of bringing joy to others. In fact, that might be what I’m here for. *** Metaphor. My favorite part of the writing process, hands down, is finding the central metaphor and letting it seep in to every other aspect of my story. Metaphors orient me. They make my work feel bigger and richer. There is a central metaphor in every great story, I think. Every story is, at its core, a metaphor itself. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/my-essentials monthly 0.5 2020-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598382181463-ACUTFO6E9Z4ULIJZWW4E/image-asset.jpeg essays - 8.24.2020 - My Essentials The greatest thing about writing is you need so few things to get started. I wrote the first paragraph of my new novel on a scrap of receipt paper at a bar near my house (and that first paragraph never changed!) But on a regular day, when maybe I’m tired or just uninspired, having the right tools on hand — and setting the right mood (yes, there is a candle and room spray on this list) — is the shortcut I need to get me into a creative headspace quickly. The key isn’t buying a ton of crap you don’t need, but for me these few things were worth their weight in gold. Here are the things you’ll never find me without: The Notebook: RIFLE PAPER COMPANY MEMOIR NOTEBOOK @riflepaperco The Chic Trapper Keeper: POKETO LARGE 13" MINIMALIST FOLIO - BLUSH @poketo The Pens: TUL GEL PENS The Pencils: BLACKWING 602 PENCILS @blackwing The Playlist: SPOTIFY “CHILLHOP RADIO” @spotify The Speaker: INSMY PORTABLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER @insmy_speaker_official The Candle: HEARTH & HAND “FIRESIDE” CANDLE @hearthandhand_target The Room Spray: RIKRAK PILLOW & LINEN MIST @kitkempdesignthread Sure, half of these things have nothing to do with writing, but MOOD IS EVERYTHING PEOPLE. And when you get into flow and don’t feel like showering, the room spray doubles as a perfume. You’re welcome. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/liminal-space monthly 0.5 2020-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598415538986-SOWUNWX97TKPEQR3UDW9/IMG_2718.jpg essays - 8.23.2020 - The Liminal Space I took this photo a week before quarantine started, three days after my 40th birthday. I didn’t know then that this image would come to symbolize for me what Richard Rohr calls “the liminal space,” which he describes as the state of being “betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown.” COVID has thrust many of us into a liminal space for reasons obvious and subtle, mundane and mysterious, simple and wildly complex. It’s been a period of intense creativity and deep connection for me, but also of malaise and boredom and loneliness. It’s reminded me, perhaps more than anything else, that writing is absolutely essential to my well being. As I told a friend the other day, writing saves my life every day. In case it might also save yours, I’m going to start sharing more about my process and what it’s like to live the writer’s life, which is an altogether different thing than just being a person who writes. If any of it’s helpful, great. Most of it probably won’t be because writing is such a personal experience and, ultimately, a solitary exercise. But here is what I know for sure: we writers need each other. And we are all writers whether we know it or not. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/our-anxiety-ourselves monthly 0.5 2020-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598728119768-0U4UGDKB2C49Y6NFVJL6/IMG_1147.JPG essays - 8.4.2017 - Our anxiety, Ourselves She has her daddy’s eyes. His athletic ability. His love of math. She has my stick-straight hair, my flair for the dramatic, my tendency to rush. It’s this last one that worries me. When I see her scribbling her answers to homework just as fast as she can. Is she hurrying because she’s seven years old and impatient, or is it because she, like her mama, gets heart palpitations at the thought of having work left to do? When I was her age, I sped through every assignment I got. Not because the work was easy, but because if I left it for too long I would start thinking about how much there was to do, and how difficult it was going to be, and how I probably wouldn’t finish in time, and how even if I did, I’d get all the answers wrong and everyone would find out what I already knew: that I wasn’t as smart as they all thought. Nobody knew about the creepy-crawly feeling I got sometimes when I thought about the future. They couldn’t see the giant boulder pressing down on my chest. I didn’t know to call it “high-functioning anxiety” then; I just knew I didn’t want anyone to know about it. So I kept it to myself. Is that what she’s doing? The little girl who gets up early to do her homework, racing to finish before her younger brothers wake up. The one who refuses to come downstairs until she’s completely dressed for school, who begged to do her entire science fair project the day it was assigned, who always eats the food she likes least first to get it out of the way. My husband says she’s strategic. I wonder if it’s something else. Who am I kidding? I don’t “wonder.” I worry. I worry that she’s just like me. I can hear my father asking, “Would that be so bad? You turned out okay.” Which, is true. I turned out fine. But there was a period in college when I stopped being able to feel my legs. Which, at the time, felt like less of a big deal than the full-blown panic attacks. The stomach cramps after every meal. The doctor at the campus health center told me it was IBS. Another doctor decided I was allergic to wheat. Nobody saw what I was really suffering from – an all-consuming fear that I would never be enough. Smart enough, successful enough, capable enough, interesting enough, likable enough. All the things I was trying so hard to be. That fear propelled me through my twenties. It was behind every achievement, every professional success. Until, one day, I saw two pink lines on a stick and suddenly it wasn’t just a ball of panic in my belly but a cluster of cells that would grow into a tiny baby girl we weren’t expecting so soon. The surprise gave way to worry, so much worry -- what if I miscarry? What if there’s something wrong with her? What if I die during delivery? What if I drop her on her head? – but when she got here, when I held her in my arms, the fear receded. It wasn’t I got this so much as I am this, a mother, her mother, a role I couldn’t earn and most certainly didn’t deserve but still could never lose. I’d gone to church all my life but never truly comprehended grace until this. But still I worry. Not about my own identity anymore, but hers. I don’t want my beautiful, brave, creative creature to ever doubt her worth. Because isn’t that what anxiety is at its root? Behind the incessant flurry of what-ifs there’s one quiet what-if that we’re trying so hard to silence, what if I’m not good enough? It’s a question the world will answer for us, over and over again, you’re right, you don’t measure up. Because we don’t. None of us do. So what’s my answer? I need one ready, next time she misses a math problem and her hands ball up in fists. I usually tell her that right answers are overrated, that the most interesting people get lots of things wrong. But where is the grace in this? This morning it’s spelling homework. She’s filling in missing letters to words I’m impressed she already knows. “Bicyclist” trips her up. Her foot starts bouncing. She’ll start biting her eraser next. Grace, I remind myself. Give her grace in this. I’m quiet for several moments, searching for the perfect words, aware that there aren’t any, which, I realize, is the whole point. So instead of saying anything, I lean over and pull her into my arms, my girl, and I let that be enough. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/panic-attack monthly 0.5 2020-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598728638153-32AFKA0XN8PW8MP1C1I7/GHP.jpg essays - 6.29.2017 - What a Panic Attack Really Feels Like I'm either dying or crazy. Those were the words on repeat in my brain the first time I had a panic attack, the summer after my sophomore year in high school. I was at the Georgia Governor's Honors Program, aka "GHP," a four-week summer program for "gifted" kids that sounded really awesome when I applied. Two days in I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. I don't fit in, I remember thinking as I lay in bed that second night. I don't belong. Not here. Not anywhere. And then my heart started racing and my skin got way, way too tight. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I'd pinned all my hope on this summer at GHP. It was here, sleeping in a college dorm, taking advanced classes in "Communicative Arts" with other Type-A, overachieving high school kids, that I would finally find My People, aka People Like Me, aka People With Whom I Wouldn't Have to Try So Hard. http://laurenmcbrayer.com/essays/march-forth-2010 monthly 0.5 2020-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57d83dc515d5dbe7f93114c7/1598727489548-8UB9VELEBA0TX5UA82X5/DSC04149.JPG essays - 3.4.2010 - March Forth It’s 4:17 a.m. I’m sitting on the coziest of couches in the coziest of rooms, drinking a steaming mug of coffee as I snuggle under a furry blanket. Lil Mil is on the couch next to me, eyes aflutter, lost in baby dreamland. Outside it’s a blanket of white. Snow on the porch, snow on the trees, snow on the mountains I can just make out in the not-quite-dark. I can’t see the sun, but I know it’s coming. Morning is on its way. But for now, I’m enjoying the not-yet-morning. Those few moments when the day ahead holds every ounce of promise, when it feels like there may actually be enough hours to get it all done. There is so much to do. Too much. But here, in the not-yet-morning, there is no hurry, because the day has not yet begun. There is still time. These moments, they end so quickly. So suddenly. At some point in the very near future, Lil Mil will wake up. She’ll be hungry, and I’ll feed her. And while I’m kissing her tiny toes and nuzzling her sweaty little neck, my screen will go dark and my coffee will get cold. Husband will emerge from the bedroom, and before long, the sun will be up and the day will have begun. The clock will start ticking. And before I know it, the day will be gone. This day. My thirtieth birthday. March fourth. A date. A sentence. March forth. A motto. My motto. It hasn’t always been. Sure, if you’d asked me, I would’ve claimed it. At 18, 21, 25. But it didn’t fit. Not really. March \märch\ (v.): to move in a direct purposeful manner; to make steady progress. Forth \ˈfȯrth\ (adv.): onward in time, place, or order. I think it does now. + + + + + The day I found out I was pregnant, I bought a blank notebook and wrote a letter to Lil Mil. It was the first of 253 letters, one for each day of my pregnancy. I wrote the last one exactly 36 weeks later, on her birthday. I mention this because I am proud of this. I am proud of this because I did what I set out to do. I didn’t miss a day. Not a single one. If you’d asked me on Day #1 whether I’d really do it – whether I’d really write a letter every single day of my pregnancy – I would have said yes. Absolutely. Bobbed my head enthusiastically. I would have done this despite the fact that, given my history with such do-this-every-day commitments (and there have been many), the odds that I’d actually stick to this one were slim. And by slim, I mean none. I’m not exactly sure where I got this daily-letter-to-baby idea, but I embraced it with gusto. I immediately went out and bought a new leather moleskine (despite the fact that I had no less than five empty journals in my closet). I searched and searched for just the right pen. I drafted my first letter, in which I promised the poppyseed-sized embryo inside me that I would write to him/her every day until he/she was born. This is what I do when I latch on to an idea I like. I run with it. No hesitation, full-speed ahead. No matter what the context – a night out, a workout plan, the much-needed reorganization of my bedroom closet – I always start big, with flourish and gusto, full of ideas and grand plans. And enthusiasm! So much enthusiasm! Which, in the past, would typically last for roughly the first third of the activity. Sudden fervor followed by an equally sudden loss of interest. That was my m.o. I’d love an idea, then I wouldn’t anymore. I’d craft a plan, then abandon it. Race forward, then abruptly change course. Always on to the next thing, the next idea, the next grand plan. But then, something changed. One sunny May morning, I found out that I was no longer alone in my body. There was a tiny little person inside me, a poppyseed-sized person who deserved more than just my good intentions. A person who, even at poppyseed stage, deserved to have a mom who sticks to her promises. I wanted to be that mom. I wanted to be that woman, not just for her, but for me. That desire, more than anything else, was the impetus for this blog. I’ve talked a lot about the why behind this project – why a book, why now. I didn’t want to lose my identity in motherhood. I didn’t want to lose momentum with my writing career. I didn’t want this detour to take me off track. I wanted to prove that the journey through Life With A Newborn can be a creative and productive one. But none of those reasons explain how I got from the why to the what. Why a daily (okay, not quite daily) blog? Why the detailed game plan, the rules, the weekly list of tasks? Why the need for an audience? Because I wanted to succeed. I wanted to make the first 12 weeks 100 days of my daughter’s life the best 12 weeks 100 days of mine. And I was afraid that I would fail. Not by falling short of my goal, but by abandoning it. By giving up. By giving in to the unceasing demands of Life With A Newborn. By convincing myself that it was too much, too soon. By letting my fear that I can’t actually do this (a fear I work very hard not to acknowledge) keep me from trying. In other words, I was afraid that I’d do what I do: make a grand plan (I’ll finish my novel in the first 12 weeks of my baby’s life!), complete with sweeping promises (I’ll write daily!), and not follow through. A reasonable concern, considering my history of well-laid but abruptly abandoned plans. So I launched this blog. It’s harder to quit with people watching. But I know now that I shouldn’t have been worried. Because that poppyseed-sized person who became a seven-pound fifteen-ounce little girl had already changed the game. She had made this project about something else. Something more. And she made me into someone else. Someone more. Someone who sees things through. Who sticks to her promises. Who finishes what she starts, no matter how long it takes or bumpy the road gets. No matter where this detour leads. + + + + It’s 6:28 a.m. The sky is lighter now. Lil Mil is awake, snuggled up on a furry blanket, just watching her mama work. The day has begun. This day. My birthday. March fourth. March forth. 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