What's the difference between writers and everyone else? Perhaps the biggest difference is also the simplest one – writers actually put their thoughts into words and then put those words onto paper. So if you want to be a writer, what's stopping you? If you are a new or expectant mom, then there might be a million things getting in the way, starting with sheer exhaustion and ending with, well, sheer exhaustion. But if you can keep your eyes open for those few moments of glorious quiet, then there will always be one very good reason for you to pick up a pen or grab your laptop – because you have something to say and you want to say it.

In a previous life, Elizabeth Reed from Morehead City, N.C., was a congressional press secretary and an Op-Ed columnist, but when she became a mother, she hoped to be able to make a career out of writing from home. When she found that she did not have the energy to produce material outside of the life she was living, she decided her life was her best material. "I realized that writing about motherhood didn't have to be the stuff of strained peas and failing vacuum cleaners," she says. "This was what everyone was living and no one was talking about, and it was raw and interesting and rich. So I wrote about it, and it was much better than the lofty stuff I was trying to produce." And thus, Reed became "Da Momma," and a blog was born at www.damomma.com.

Reed derives great satisfaction from writing and has found the process cathartic, even though she "hates, hates, hates" the term. "To think well is to write clearly," she says. "So if you intend to write well about an experience, you have to think clearly about it. And if you want anyone to like it, you have to be honest, which means you can't be perfect. It's humbling at the same time that it's an ego boost."

As much as she likes it, there are drawbacks to putting her life out there for others to read. For instance, she has to be careful about how she portrays the people she knows because they might actually read what she has written about them. There are also concerns about protecting her family's privacy, and she worries about people being mean or offering judgments on her choices. "There is no more personal choice in the world than mothering, and people get really worked up about what they think is best," Reed says. "I can't avoid the hot button issues, so I write about them as carefully as I can in the hopes of keeping a dialogue going."

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