Writer with a capital W

When I was little, I wanted to be a writer, and my mother told me to get a day job first and pursue my dream on the side. Sensible woman, so she is. I kind of let that dream slide for a few years while I got on with trying to figure out the day job side of things; after running my way through a number of different retail jobs and vowing to never again do a job that required my HACCP cert, I finally found the day job that would fit for now – not forever, but for this stage of my life.

Then I got pregnant, and fat, and whiny and decided the internet should have to put up with me.

I started this blog on a rainy afternoon when I was trapped indoors, to rant at the world not thinking anyone much would listen. For the first while they didn’t, and then I learned about linkys, social media marketing and joined the rather wonderful Irish Parenting Bloggers group. Through this, I gained not only more knowledge about blogging, marketing and parenting, but also gained some new friends who understood exactly what was going on when my child was teething/pooing weird/not eating and when I wasn’t adjusting to this parenting craic so well. So far, so awesome.

A while back, I mentioned that an Irish Parenting magazine, Maternity & Infant had used my post on Postnatal Depression, “PostNatal Depression, You Bitch” as part of their Blog We Log series and was very excited about it. Directly afterwards, I was commissioned to write another article for them; this time becoming a proper paid writer. The little part of me that dreamt of becoming a proper writer; who could sit in cafes with good coffee and her MacBook and type things people wanted to read was singing. I researched; interviewed and finally submitted a piece I felt proud of; that I thought would be of help to someone suffering or around someone suffering from prenatal depression. From talking to others and my own experience with postnatal depression, it was glaringly clear to me that this isn’t something people feel comfortable discussing; I wrote on here before about not instantly feeling overjoyed when finding out you’re pregnant but antenatal or prenatal depression is an extension of that; it’s not just having to get used to it and it can be very serious if you don’t mind your mental health. For that reason, I wrote the article aiming it at women like me who may not have been able to say out loud that being a mother wasn’t making them sing from the rooftops to tell them it is okay and help is out there. The fantastic Rosey Wren, who runs the account PNDandme on Twitter and hosts weekly #PNDhour chats to open the lines of communication, was happy to share her story with me, and I hope that will resonate with readers.

This morning, after having a bit of a crap start to the day, I wandered into Eason and spotted the new issue was on sale. To my absolute surprise and delight, my article was one of the “On the Cover” features – that inner wannabe writer in me was singing. As much as I love blogging and writing online, seeing my words in print that others will read does feel completely different. Maybe that’s quite sad, but the little things really do make a difference. I hope this is something I can repeat because the feeling of accomplishing something at the moment isn’t very common in my life so it’s a great new start of hopefully lots more to come.

If you want to check out the article “Maternity & Infant” magazine is available in most good book shops and newsagents – I’m really interested in hearing opinions about the piece if you have any!