Mothers, Daughters, and Writing

If you’ve attend just a handful of writing workshops,  you’ve realized that many writers are working with ideas that originate from a topic they know best: family.

On Mother’s Day, I was reminded of the first time I wrote anything that I thought was worthy of sharing with others. When I was a sophomore in college, I wrote a poem about the passing of my mother. I did not keep the poem and I only remember the first line: “My lips brushed her warm skin.”  That line memorialized my last moment with her.

Whenever I find myself in need of a mother’s love, I instinctively start reciting that line over and over again and I warmly recall how anyone that read that poem loved it.

So why write about this on the BWW blog? Because there’s a lesson for all writers in my experience: save everything you write, no matter how painful it is to keep or how polished you think the piece is. As the years pass, you may find the courage to pull that cherished piece out, either to share with others or to continue to refine it when you have the strength to do so. You will not regret saving your work. You will only regret not keeping it.