Penelope Hutchison has one word to describe how she felt upon becoming a mom: stunned. The Vancouver resident admits she was completely taken aback by how isolated she felt during those early days of her child’s life. The loneliness that flooded in so unexpectedly was only exacerbated by a case of postpartum depression that lasted about a year. Then there was the overwhelmingly steep learning curve that accompanies caring for a newborn.

If Hutchison found herself fumbling toward motherhood, she certainly isn’t alone. Granted, the joys and benefits of parenting far outweigh its rigours, but most new moms say they’re shocked to learn just how tough their new role can be. Sleep-deprived, covered in spit-up, and perpetually behind on household chores, women suddenly find themselves working harder than ever before—in demand 24 hours a day—all the while yearning for adult conversation, lamenting the lack of personal freedom, and, commonly, facing the loss of identity.

Hutchison found that one way of coping with the ever-changing demands of motherhood—her “baby” is now 10—is through words. She just finished taking part in the Momoir Project, a writing course for moms of all ages.

“You’re alone for eight hours a day with this being,” Hutchison recalls of being a new mom, speaking to the Straight at a West Side café where the group recently gathered for its last session. “You feel so isolated. It’s so freeing to write about whatever is on my mind and to connect with other women.…This raw honesty comes out. We barely know each other but we know where we’re all coming from. We can all relate.

“I love being able to write about being a mom—not just about changing diapers but about how motherhood changed our relationships with our partners, with our mothers and fathers,” she adds. “There’s a huge, broad range of issues. It’s writing about life. There are no censors.”

Started by local journalist Cori Howard, the Momoir Project aims to teach moms how to record their experiences, whether they just want a keepsake or they aspire to being published in print or on-line. As a writer and a mother of two, Howard knows firsthand the power of the pen (or the computer keyboard).

“I use writing to deal with my problems,” she says before class, adding that she too was caught off-guard by the challenges of motherhood. “I had the career crisis, the marriage crisis, the friendship crisis, the identity crisis. I wasn’t prepared at all. I thought it was going to be all cuddles and hugs and soft blankets.”

One thing that helps women cope is learning that they’re not alone. No wonder mommy lit has exploded as a genre over the past several years, from Allison Pearson’s 2003 novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother to Trisha Ashworth’s I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood (2007).

Also in 2007, Howard edited Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood (Key Porter), an anthology of strikingly up-front essays by Chantal Kreviazuk, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Elizabeth Renzetti, among other Canadians.

Following the book’s release, Howard says she was inundated with e-mails from women who wanted to tell their stories but didn’t know how to get started. That’s when she got the idea to offer a writing class to help women unleash the vast amounts of personal—not to mention touching, tear-jerking, irreverent, intimate, and comical—subject matter that motherhood creates.

Howard has been deeply moved by the stories her participants have come up with.

“We’ve done a lot of crying together,” Howard says.

There’s no denying the way writing about such a soul-stirring part of life can be therapeutic for those who do it and comforting to those who read it.

For proof, look no further than the blogosphere. According to the 2009 Women and Social Media Study conducted by BlogHer, iVillage, and Compass Partners, as many as 26 million moms in the United States alone write, read, and comment on blogs.

The study found that women start their own blogs to have fun, express themselves, connect with like-minded women, give and get advice, receive positive reactions from others, keep a personal diary, and establish and contribute to a community.

Inspiration for so many wannabe mommy bloggers is Heather Armstrong, a Salt Lake City, Utah, mother of two who writes about “poop and boobs” with honesty, clarity, and hilarity at Dooce.com. Her experiences clearly resonate: she gets about 55,000 hits every day.

Closer to home, Sarah Juliusson has fallen in love with writing a blog. One of the founders of Mama Renew, which aims to connect and support women on the journey of motherhood through workshops and groups, Juliusson says the blog aims to speak to the deeper needs of moms rather than gloss over women’s issues like so many breezy Cosmo-style lists.

“We want to dig into the reality of the lives of mothers,” Juliusson tells the Straight in a phone interview. “I walk through my life in such a different way now that I’m writing about motherhood.…Everything is a story.”

Blogging is a great alternative to being published in print, says Howard, who focuses on the essay form in her classes. The course has two levels, the first of which includes the basics of good writing (which is sadly lacking on so many blogs) while the second teaches participants how to get published—and how to handle rejection. The next six-week session, which costs $420, starts in the fall.

Erin MacNair, a mother of two and a Vancouver jeweller, carved out time in her hectic schedule to take the Momoir class.

“You have so much material in you, and to have a place to let it go, to be in a safe circle of women who aren’t going to judge you, is really quite powerful,” she tells the Straight. “We’ve been moved to tears. It’s cathartic.…Writing makes me feel like a person again.”