Our Blog — The Literary Type

…is the name of my new blog, which is about—yes, you guessed it—what I’m reading these days, and how. I do hope you’ll drop in sometime when you’re done catching up with the New Quarterly crew here.

The blog isn’t the only writing I’m doing these days, either. Several months ago, I read this essayby Christine Pountney in Maisonneuve. It’s stuck with me because suddenly, after reading it, my world made sense again. In particular, this paragraph:

Even the inconvenience of having a sick child at home is a good reminder of what you can achieve under normal circumstances. Suddenly you start to realize how much you have; how much you could lose; what you have already lost. In this way, regret is putting me back in touch with my own potential. And I’m trying to harness it.

Substitute “inconvenience of having a sick child” with “reality of having a new baby” and that was me. Before I had Chelsea, I had a lot more time, yes, but many of those hours were just straight-up wasted. And since I read that essay I’ve idiotically, if also somewhat ironically, gone and wasted many more, moaning about all that I’ve wasted. No more!

This is why I’ve decided, with a nine month old at home, to begin doing the freelance writing I used to think I had no time for.  Wish me luck, all! Tips from writers out there reading this, especially those who are also parents, are most, most welcome.