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At some point in the young and hopeful stage of my writing career, I realized that two things rarely went together—successful writer and successful mother. Oh, there are plenty of father writers, successful in at least one of those trades, but many of the great literary women I could think of, and most of my women writing professors, did not have children. I read a quote by Jamaica Kincaid saying that she could not have produced her earlier works if she’d had children at the time. The thought frightened me. There was nothing in this world I wanted as passionately as having a family and being able to write books, and I feared that the two just could not go together. Happily, I was wrong! Let me confess that I am by no means an expert at this subject. At this writing, I have one child, age 15 months. I’ve met fabulous women who somehow mother 6 children and create great works of fiction, and I’m tiny and shivering in their shadows. But quite often I get the question: How do you write and be a mother? So here are my thoughts. I got a head start. Obviously, this tactic won’t help everyone. I know many women who did not start to write until their littlest one was in school, but in my case, I was quite lucky to figure out at a young age that I had to be a writer. By the time I got married, I had received an MFA in Creative Writing and been in the habit of writing in a regular schedule. Habits are powerful and much easier to form, I’ve noticed, when I have leisure time. When my first child was born, the goose girl had been published. Exactly one week before my water broke, I’d sent my final draft of enna burning to my editor. I make and meet goals. I know of no better way for any writer to finish a book, with or without children. In a mother’s case, it’s a non-negotiable. My goals change. Before Max, it was 1500 words/day, when he was a newborn, it was 800/day, and now it’s 1000/day. I find a goal that is challenging but possible, and I keep it. If I don’t make my daily goal during his nap time, I stay up at night writing, and if I simply can’t do it one day, I make it up on Saturday. I don’t think I’ve missed a weekly goal in a couple of years. It’s like dieting—the first time you cheat, it’s that much harder the next time you see a Snickers. My writing time is sacred time. Not everyone understands this one. I know I’ve come across as uncooperative to many folks as I turn down lunch invites and requests for author visits, but I have to be so firm with myself. Max’s naptime is my writing time. I turn off the phone (repeat: turn off that blasted phone!), I resist responding to emails or exploring websites or playing mind-numbing rounds of computer solitaire (Vegas game rules). I don’t even eat, often getting around to lunch at 4 pm. This is not especially healthy, I know, but those 2-3 hours are my writing time. If I didn’t set aside a certain time every day and stick with it, I’d probably be well fed, but my books would be starving. I make my family my world. There are days when I have to leave Max with a sitter to go do author visits or even go out of town, so I make sure that my mornings and afternoons alone with my boy are wonderful fun. We play hard, we talk and read books, putter around, go outside, visit dogs. And I do my best to make my daily goals during nap time so I can have the evenings with my husband. It makes it easier to have my writer times when I feel confident that the rest of the time I'm devoting myself to my family. I accept the fact that my house will never be clean. OK, really I should say, I plan on accepting that fact any day now. I wish my carpets were vacuumed weekly (heck, monthly would be peachy), that I had a meal plan and didn’t panic when 6 pm rolls around and the kitchen is stone cold. Our backyard is literally a yard, and I still can’t manage to keep it weed free and full of happy plants. Really, you’d be shocked. And don’t look under my bed. But my priorities are: Max’s needs, husband time, writing, feeding self, sleep, bathing self, church volunteer responsibilities, paying bills…housework comes somewhere down here, maybe after Essential Grooming. I take a day off. Whenever I have a free moment, the first thing I grab is my computer and work on a book. A touch obsessive, Shannon? I find that instituting a day of rest is essential for keeping myself sane. My day is Sunday. I haven't written books or stories on Sunday in about 7 years and I find that it helps me to rest my brain and allow myself to focus on other things that I normally wouldn't allow myself to do. I also don't do housework except for the barest needs, like meal making. Sometimes during Max's (and Papa's) nap time, I have two hours of silence. It's unnerving, and amazing. I reboot myself for the week. I go through family pictures, write letters, keep a journal, read. I think we all need a day of rest, including our characters. I know I need to write. It’s easy to feel guilty as a mother. There are endless demands on us, particularly as the number of children grow and as they grow up and are expected to be taking piano lessons, dance lessons, nuclear physics lessons. Children need their mothers to read to them, do homework, listen, anticipate disaster and chop of its head. But I also know that Max will always need a mostly sane mother, a happy mother, a mother to be proud of. And I know that when I’m not writing, I’m not happy, and the unwritten stories start to haunt me and tug on my sleeves and demand words on a page, and I cease to be the functioning kind of sane and start swatting at invisible characters. Mamas need our creative output, too. My finger painting is books. Return to On Writing |
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