Yeah, no. Not that kind.

As a matter of fact, I am sitting at my desk NOT doing laundry, not baking banana bread, listening to my kids argue over which episode of Go Diego Go to watch … but hey, it’s a snow day. Nevertheless I am fully appreciating the irony here. Feel free to take part.

The Mother I am referring to, actually, is the novel I am working on, “Mother Mona.” Here’s the gist of it, from the back of my imaginary best-selling book:

Mona, a 49-year-old divorced CPA from Newport Beach, was never a contender for Mother of the Year. However, her daughter Beth needs her now. Beth’s pregnancy has gone wrong, and Mona’s son-in-law Sasha asks her to come help her daughter recover after childbirth almost kills her. Mona travels to the remote Alaskan island where Beth and her family live – without electricity, in-floor heating or running water.

 Mona is completely out of her element in the remote Alaskan cabin. There’s a humungous spider named Pip living in the outhouse. After years of living on takeout and salads, her daughter’s wood burning cook stove is a complete mystery to her. She refuses to feed slimy slugs to the ducks that happen to despise her. One more meal of canned salmon and she’s going to cry. Her daughter is distant, her son-in-law is absent, and her quirky, homeschooled grandchildren think she’s nuts. Her only friends are a small group of Russian nuns that live on a nearby island and a  64-year-old Alutiiq hermit who thinks like a pirate.

The thing is, writing a novel is a lot like being pregnant for the first time. You obsess over every little detail. You stand in line at the grocery store and jot different names on scratch paper under “milk, bread, tomatoes.” You read every writerly book, magazine article and online blog you can find, and hope like heck that you’re doing it all right. It’s all you can talk about – even as you watch the eyes of friends and acquaintances gloss over like dead salmon on a hot beach. And worse, the writing muse will kick you in the gut without warning, waking you up at night and making you gasp out loud in public. Your concerned husband will ask if you’re OK, and you’ll reply, “Ouch! I just figured out what was wrong with chapter 3!”

Sadly, no one feels the urge to pamper writers like a woman in that “delicate condition,” although I would maintain that being in the midst of writing a difficult scene is a pretty delicate condition to be in. No one offers to rub your feet or cook you dinner. No one urges you to take it easy “for the sake of the novel” or eat because you’re “thinking for two now.”

So, that being the case, I suppose I’d better get a load of laundry going and feed the kids something healthy for lunch. Like any good mother would. Just as soon as I finish these last few pages.