Articles | The Official Heather Quarnstrom Blog

The Official Heather Quarnstrom Blog Writer, WAHM, and Mother, but NEVER in that order.

Lately I've been having some serious issues with writer's block. It seems like all the time I have so many ideas just floating around my brain until I sit down to actually write. The second I pick up a pen/pencil, or sit down at the computer my brain just empties. It's beginning to make me insane. I have all these things plotted out and notes written down, but when it comes time to turn them in to something -- *poof*. Sometimes I get lucky and can get a few words down, but then if I look them over I am horrified. I start wondering who on earth would read this? It's worse than the worse thi...

Catching up... Or "Yes, I'm still alive and kicking."

Hi everyone! I'd like to apologize for the long hiatus. Many things have been going on in my personal life. I won't go in to too much detail, but I've had a lot of health issues and a couple of surgeries in the interim time. I've also lost three close family members in the space of the last couple of years that have thrown me and I have still not really absorbed their loss. Another reason that I have been absent so long is that I've also had a lot of self-doubt as a writer. I have actually gotten some writing done, as well as a bit of my first novel started. After the first bit I was hi...

What is this blog about, anyway?

Just recently I began submitting my blog to various blog related listing sites, and found I had a small problem. All of them ask me to classify what this blog is about. Uh-oh. For some reason they all seemed to lack the proper category. The neglected to add the "whatever strikes my fancy" category. That led me to sit down and really think about what this blog is about. I've been told it's a "mommy blog" since I have posted parenting relating things, or it's a "contest blog" because I post giveaways. Ok, I can get with that, sort-of. Those are parts of me, but I have a problem with cla...

5 Minutes for Special Needs

Many of you don't know that I have both a sister and a niece with special needs. My sister suffered brain damage as a result of her belirubin climbing to record heights as an infant. Her functioning level was put at that of a six year old, even though she is 30 years old. She is the sweetest person, but has had a very rough life due to this and other unrelated problems. My niece has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and I have been learning all I can about this very common Autism Spectrum Disorder. As a result, I am a proud supporter of sites and causes that promote information and f...

May

What I’ve learned since becoming a Mom

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Here are the top ten that I have found most attitude altering (in no particular order):

1. No matter the love you have felt before, your love for your child will eclipse it.

2. If you’ve just put on clean clothes something will make it necessary to change. (Baby spit up, food, mud, some unnamed substance you really don’t want to know what it really is….) The same is true when children get dressed up to leave the house.

3. Each child is different, and each child is different from moment to moment. (This is especially true of what foods they like. If I had a penny for the number of times I have heard “But I don’t like that!” even if it’s something they couldn’t get enough of the day before.)

4. It doesn’t matter how clean your house is, within 5 minutes of children returning it will look like you haven’t cleaned it in a year.

5. Anytime you sit down to do something for yourself, you are guaranteed to have a life threatening emergency of biblical proportions. (Such as a splinter in a little finger, someone spilled milk, child one accidentally spit while talking and it hit child two, etc.)

6. If you put something in one spot it will be gone in the space of five seconds.

7. It doesn’t matter how many socks go in the dryer, you will always end up with an odd number and at least 5 socks that have no match.

8. If something spills, breaks, disappears, etc and try to find out who is responsible the culprit is always “not me” no matter who you ask. (Personally I think Not Me should start paying rent. I’ll bring that up if I ever find him.)

9. If you schedule a big event that involves you and the special someone in your life (husband, boyfriend, whatever) at least one of your children will come down with a bizarre mystery illness. This illness will include but will not be limited to a fever, vomiting, and/or other unknown symptoms that make it impossible for your intended evening festivities.

10. You can’t sweat the small stuff, more of it keeps cropping up. (And you’ll just go insane if you keep letting it get to you.)

Thanks MommyFest Blog Party for this great topic! I never stopped to think how much my children have taught me!

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Tags: child, children, mom, parenting, Writing

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Apr

The Beauty (and Terror) of the Written Word

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by Heather Quarnstrom

Have you ever seen a sentence that was just so well put together that it’s the equivalent of a beautiful painting? The sentence just flows and hits something deep within you. It’s such an amazing construct that while it is something that inspires you as a writer, it also terrifies you. You feel that every word that you write has to compare to that glowing work of art.

I’ve personally spent years justifying my lack of writing with the fact that I felt what I would write just couldn’t measure up. My subconscious told me again and again that if my words weren’t comparable to one shining example or another that it just wasn’t worth my time or effort to compete. What I finally realized exactly what was stopping me and thought it through, I had an amazing realization. My writing doesn’t have to be perfect! Now, that may seem like a simple, easy to realize concept to everyone that reads this, but I guarantee that MANY struggling writers can relate.

The feeling becomes so ingrained in our minds that unless what comes out of our heads is perfect then it shouldn’t be recorded. Not only is it supposed to come out perfect, but it should come out perfect the first try. It finally dawned on me that I would never know what my writing could become because I was censoring it before I even wrote it. My mind was so wrapped up in the concept of perfection that it was strangling the creative side that puts the words together. That then virtually guaranteed that whatever I wrote, if I ever got past the terror enough to actually write, would be the exact thing I feared.

I came to the conclusion that the only way I would ever fulfill my dream of being a writer would be by silencing my inner critic, and just writing. If I didn’t worry what came out the result was not only a relief, but also amazingly freeing to my creativity. I found that sentences came to me during the strangest time. The most spectacular thing was that not only would they come to me, but they would stick around until I got somewhere I could actually write them down. Those sentences led to more sentences, which lead to paragraphs, and lo and
behold — I was writing!

The amazing thing about the technical age is the delete button. If something doesn’t come across the way I meant it, I can delete and try again. If what I write is in fact horrible and I wouldn’t even print it out to line a litter box — delete. I can even save it and go back to it another day if I want. Maybe after working on it a little bit subconsciously I will get inspired to change it to something that is worth reading. If not, I don’t worry about it. I look at it as practice for when I find something I am truly passionate to write about.

The bottom line is this — if you let yourself get so wrapped up in fear that you can’t even think about writing without hyperventilating then you have failed without even trying. Who knows – you may be the next master artist of the writing world. You’ll never know until you try.

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Heather Quarnstrom is a work at home mom of five beautiful children. She is a mother, wife, web/graphic designer, writer, and entrepreneur. If you would like to see what she is up to now, or browse a really great collection of diverse resources on the web, please stop by her site at http://www.heatherquarnstrom.com.
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