Loved this and I sympathize deeply, especially with the chronic sleep deprivation that makes it very very hard to be creative. My two cents: 1) Once your kids are grown it often happens you turn next, very quickly, to tending parents and/or in-laws, especially if they are dealing with terminal diseases, dementia, or even if you just need to move them in and out of houses, nursing homes etc. I am astonished how much of the last decade has focused around that, for both my husband and me. I know some of our readers can relate! And 2) I credit my young children with teaching me how to not waste time and to embrace imperfectionism. It was essential, when a kid was napping, to get some writing done quickly (something I'm not as good about now) and I would often enter writing contests with personal essays I'd basically written in one day, because one day was all I had. My desperation drove me to work more efficiently and with less self-consciousness than I do now. So, thank those babies! They are little Pomodoro timers in cute little onesies!
Man this topic is close to my heart. My kid just turned 7 and the novel I was working on when he had just turned one recently went out on sub. I think back on the YEARS of writing around mothering. The nap writing, the notes app writing, the pandemic writing wherein we lost daycare and he dropped his naps AT THE SAME TIME. It does all become a blur, and it doesn’t quite matter how you show up for your writing as long as you do. I often feel frustrated that I’m not faster, that my writing life feels so slow moving some days (years lol), but it’s all forward motion even if it looks different than it did before motherhood.
Thanks so much for this post! I especially love that you included Caitlin Mullen’s take. I took a class with her a little over a year ago and loved her mindset about creativity and writing!
A novel out on sub! And a 7-year-old child! Because you are not AT ALL busy, Kristin, we would love for you to consider writing a craft-oriented, reading/writing/ publishing related guest post for us. Please think about it!
I'm honored to be asked! I'd love to write a guest post for you guys. I'll probably have a little more bandwidth in April or May but I'll start mulling over some topic ideas!
when my kids were little, I tried the "get up early in the morning to write" thing, which meant hauling myself out of bed at 5AM ... and they started waking up too, and would come waddling out of their bedroom demanding all manner of things. Sigh. There is something to Andromeda's point: there's no more "get in the mood' or "wait for long stretches of time." Get those words on the page/voice app/notes app/back of cereal box however you can. Claire Dederer's essays in Monsters are *great* about female/maternal ambition. Did you know that Doris Lessing moved to England to write...with only one of her kids?
Yessss, Doris Lessing! (Did she take even one kid? I know she left one or more behind with her husband. I looked it up in the last year but now I'm not certain.) Shades of what Sylvia Plath might have considered doing, and too bad Doris wasn't nice to her when they met a month or so before SP's death because the two women could have shared some of their "writer-mom-HELLLLPPPP!" tips.
P.S. I am not a 5am writer either. My brain won't work that early.
P.P.S. I haven't read Clare Dederer. When I was younger, I read every mother writer essay I could, desperate for validation and tips. I'll look these up sometime!
Loved this and I sympathize deeply, especially with the chronic sleep deprivation that makes it very very hard to be creative. My two cents: 1) Once your kids are grown it often happens you turn next, very quickly, to tending parents and/or in-laws, especially if they are dealing with terminal diseases, dementia, or even if you just need to move them in and out of houses, nursing homes etc. I am astonished how much of the last decade has focused around that, for both my husband and me. I know some of our readers can relate! And 2) I credit my young children with teaching me how to not waste time and to embrace imperfectionism. It was essential, when a kid was napping, to get some writing done quickly (something I'm not as good about now) and I would often enter writing contests with personal essays I'd basically written in one day, because one day was all I had. My desperation drove me to work more efficiently and with less self-consciousness than I do now. So, thank those babies! They are little Pomodoro timers in cute little onesies!
Man this topic is close to my heart. My kid just turned 7 and the novel I was working on when he had just turned one recently went out on sub. I think back on the YEARS of writing around mothering. The nap writing, the notes app writing, the pandemic writing wherein we lost daycare and he dropped his naps AT THE SAME TIME. It does all become a blur, and it doesn’t quite matter how you show up for your writing as long as you do. I often feel frustrated that I’m not faster, that my writing life feels so slow moving some days (years lol), but it’s all forward motion even if it looks different than it did before motherhood.
Thanks so much for this post! I especially love that you included Caitlin Mullen’s take. I took a class with her a little over a year ago and loved her mindset about creativity and writing!
A novel out on sub! And a 7-year-old child! Because you are not AT ALL busy, Kristin, we would love for you to consider writing a craft-oriented, reading/writing/ publishing related guest post for us. Please think about it!
I'm honored to be asked! I'd love to write a guest post for you guys. I'll probably have a little more bandwidth in April or May but I'll start mulling over some topic ideas!
Oh yay!! I’ve been meaning to DM you about this very thing!!
when my kids were little, I tried the "get up early in the morning to write" thing, which meant hauling myself out of bed at 5AM ... and they started waking up too, and would come waddling out of their bedroom demanding all manner of things. Sigh. There is something to Andromeda's point: there's no more "get in the mood' or "wait for long stretches of time." Get those words on the page/voice app/notes app/back of cereal box however you can. Claire Dederer's essays in Monsters are *great* about female/maternal ambition. Did you know that Doris Lessing moved to England to write...with only one of her kids?
Yessss, Doris Lessing! (Did she take even one kid? I know she left one or more behind with her husband. I looked it up in the last year but now I'm not certain.) Shades of what Sylvia Plath might have considered doing, and too bad Doris wasn't nice to her when they met a month or so before SP's death because the two women could have shared some of their "writer-mom-HELLLLPPPP!" tips.
P.S. I am not a 5am writer either. My brain won't work that early.
P.P.S. I haven't read Clare Dederer. When I was younger, I read every mother writer essay I could, desperate for validation and tips. I'll look these up sometime!