After difficulty conceiving a child in her 30s, Dida was finally expecting a baby girl at age 39. She was almost seven months along when Motorola announced it would close the product design studio in San Francisco that Dida co-managed. Learning she and everyone else had lost their jobs was painful news to digest (Dida had plans for a daycare wing in the studio for her daughter and the children of the designers she worked with) but, with the severance she received, Dida began writing again, while waiting for her daughter to arrive, and started her blog Motherhood Concessions. It was there, using the pen name  didaink, that she developed the courage to share her real-world experiences as a nervous, first-time mom.

When her son arrived in 2006, Dida was 42, and Motherhood Concessions became a safe place to muse and vent about the challenges of raising a baby and a toddler in her 40s, moving across the country (twice) for her husband’s job. Blogging also helped balance life at the onset of perimenopause at age 45 with two small children.

There were goofs and gambols, and epiphanies too: the unforeseen gems of parenting strong-willed toddlers at Chuck E. Cheese, family road trips without a functioning map; the plethora of emergency candy hidden in the car to keep the peace on any road trip, as well as the “let’s rethink those R-rated verbs” on G-rated vacations. TV-side breakfast, lunch, and dinners, when nobody wanted to set or sit at a table and Nemo was on (again), plus spur-of-the-moment prose about never-ending dishes, laundry, missing socks, shoes, backpacks, homework, and free tips on hosting playdates in your 40s and 50s ala Don’t do what I just did, parents!

The path to becoming a published writer was, of course, littered with rejection letters from editors. But blogging, it turned out, was terrific therapy for a nervous mom, and excellent practice to explore creative nonfiction. With practice and guidance, Dida eventually published work that shined light on more serious issues that women and mothers face, writing for the Washington Post, and other national publications.

didaink is now home to creative nonfiction coaching and editing, and it’s the platform for Braving Veracity and its anthology series to support emerging women writers.