The award goes to...

Recently, I attended an online workshop on Resilience for writers. Part of the process of submitting writing for publication is rejection. So far this year, I have received 23 rejections and 5 acceptances. Learning to deal with rejection, and retaining a sense of confidence in your abilities, is one of the most important skills that a writer can learn. 

One of the activities we did for the Resilience workshop was to write an acceptance speech, imagining that we were receiving an award for things we have achieved so far in life. This was hard for most of us, with the ever-present spectre of Imposter Syndrome lurking amongst the gallery of our pixelated faces. Some of us wrote with a mixture of self-deprecation and sarcastic humour. Most of us weren't brave enough to read out what we'd written (myself included). I wonder if this would have been the same in a mixed group - ours was all women, all mums.

In the confidence-building spirit of the workshop, I'm sharing the acceptance speech that I wrote here (and I would strongly recommend this exercise to anyone else!):

Thank you so much for this prize, but what is it for? What have I done that is so great? What are my achievements, what could fill the rapidly expanding white space on my CV?

Ok, well, I have given birth. Twice. I know nobody usually gets a prize for that, but really, everyone should. It's not called labour for nothing. It's unbelievable, really, that we don't talk about it all the time. The truly heroic, superhuman act that our bodies performed. The emotions. The hormones. The pain. Why do we ever shut up about it? How often do we thank our own mothers for going through all that for us? But no, don't worry, I won't go all Sharon Olds on you, I won't embarrass my pre-motherhood squeamish self with details of tearing body parts, projectile bodily fluids...

What else? I have potty-trained two children. (Sorry, it got back to bodily fluids pretty quickly there...) That achievement marks the membership of a select club. 'Potty-training' sounds fairly innocuous - easy even - to the uninitiated. Those who've been there know the truth. The same applies to many newly discovered parenting terms: 'cluster-feed', 'baby blues', 'threenager'.

What else in my life counts as an achievement? A PhD, I suppose. Although it still feels like an indulgence at best (a failure at worst). But I completed it. I earned the title, and I may yet come to be known by it again.

My current life is one of small victories. I got the fence painted. I mowed the lawn. I dried two loads on the washing line despite the plummeting temperatures outside. I tried a new food with the allergy child, and he was ok. I was ok. I got the school uniforms ready for the start of term. I read this week that my work as a mother and home organiser is to carry the mental load for the family. I know where everyone's socks and warm jumpers are kept, and how much chocolate spread is left in the jar. I know the different settings on the washing machine, when to order the repeat prescriptions, who had the blue cup, what time the post arrives. I can carry this load and cope with its demands. And coping is not just surviving, it's winning.

And I write. And other people read it and are touched by what I write. I can produce something unique, necessary. I can connect with someone across the ocean. I can communicate. I must be a writer - I've had more rejections than acceptances. That's the ticket to joining the writing community, isn't it? But I have had those few precious pieces accepted. I am quietly proud of them, but still feel weird sharing them. Especially outside my little community of writers. It will be even stranger when those pieces about people I know get published, and read by the people they're about. How will my kids feel seeing themselves in print? What about my parents?

One grounding factor is that my five year old's writing career is accelerating faster than my own. Every time I tweet something he's said about writing, I get more likes and follows than for any of my own witticisms. He also has more notebooks on the go than me, more stories written and shared with the family. I seem to have birthed a writer, a little well of creativity and ideas. And that's also a pretty great achievement.