Break the Lego House and Start Over (Or: Writing With Kids at Home)
By Julianna Baggott | May 28, 2020 |
I’m not sure that anyone should try to give advice about raising children. Much less about raising children while trying to write. Much less about raising children while trying to write and hold a job outside of writing. Much less about raising children while trying to write and hold a job outside of writing – while in quarantine.
But here you find yourself. And here I find myself. I have four kids. I had my first three kids during a five-year window. Then after a suspicious seven-year gap, I had a fourth. I published my first book when my third child was nine months old. I’ve gone on to publish twenty-some books, mostly novels.
Please read my tone correctly. I’m not saying this in some kind of chipper, look-at-me, cheerleader-y bullshit way.
My tone is grim. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day, in fact. My hair is unbrushed. I’m still in my bathrobe; it’s approaching lunchtime. The yard is weedy, the house disastrous. My thirteen-year-old daughter just walked in and said, “So when are we having a party?”
What? What party? Am I throwing a party in quarantine for my own Mother’s Day? “You’re thirty-four years old,” I told her. “You can throw a party yourself.”
She was confused because she’s clearly not thirty-four. I was confused. (Maybe this is a parenting tip? Sometimes, just don’t make sense. Throw them off. Occasionally, they just look at you and then walk away.)
How long have we been in quarantine? Shouldn’t she be thirty-four years old by now?
Before we proceed, I want to tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to break down your writing process into parts. And then we’re going to break down your parenting into parts. And we’re then going to rebuild a process from there.
First, your process.
The main things I want to distinguish between for writerly parents are 1. Your writing time and 2. Your muse time.
Having kids is going to apply massive pressure on both. But people forget that there are distinct phases to writing. One you can do with kids around. The other is very very hard to do with kids around – at least for me.
So The Most Important Tip of All is to think about your process and break it down into parts. It’s possible that you used to do a lot of musing during your writing time. You’d sit down to write and begin by musing about it. Gazing out a window. Pacing around. Then moving back to the keyboard.
This might just be a luxury you no longer have.
Muse time can happen when you’re not at the desk. You can muse while living your chaotic life. You’re changing diapers, chopping food into non-choke-able sizes, washing, folding, rocking a kid to sleep, getting some rocks set up to be painted, sitting through some rehearsal/practice, shopping… and you can let your mind drift.
This mind drifting can be random and lack direction and just feel like daydreaming – or you can purposefully be aware of it and use it to think about your work.
[For a breakdown of how this muse-time process can be really active, I walk you through it here. [https://soundcloud.com/user-430267500/efficient-creativity-the-six-week-audio-series ]
I suggest a few things to go with this.
- Jot notes about things that come up while in this dreamy musing state. It’s key to respect these moments and much easier to return to writing time with some actual words.
- Read your work – even if for just a minute or two – in the morning or afternoon… Just let your eyes glance over your sentences, characters, words … That way, the work is floating in your brain not too far from the surface.
- Have a time set for writing, if at all possible. Even if it’s only a kid’s nap time, it’ll be much more efficient if you come to that variable amount of time with notes, having already mused than sitting down and starting the process at the earliest stage …
- If you have a partner who can work with you, you should really carve out your writing time, put in on the calendar and keep the appointment.
As for breaking down your parenting process, figure out what you can actually do with your kids around. I remember hearing someone who’d let their kids watch TV so they could do things like cooking and cleaning in peace. I suggest cooking and cleaning during chaos and save your peace for writing. Whatever you can invite the kids into – depending on their destructive tendencies and ages – do it.
Also, I suggest that if you’re super tidy, think about being less tidy. I had a student with eight kids. She said, “By the time, I make all of their beds …” I stopped her there. “Don’t make their beds. They can make them or, seriously, give it up. Do you want to look back on your life having written poems or being able to brag: the beds were always made!” Give up as much of this bullshit as possible.
One of my greatest gifts as a writer isn’t some vague notion about talent; it’s that I can write in a very messy space, amid chaos. This is not an exaggeration. To have kids and a job and also a career as a writer, I had to be able to let a lot of things go and drop in.
You can practice this. It’s actually something I assign my grad students who feel the need, for example, to do the dishes before they can write. It becomes their homework to write with the dishes in the sink and the house a little messy around them. If you can get over some of that, it’ll be a huge help.
However, if that tidying is part of your muse time – then it’s not a distraction; it’s an integral part of your process. So use it.
If you think about your work as a parent during which your mind can drift, use that time to muse on your own work.
Then take the time when you know your kids will be engrossed, watching that kid show, and you set aside that time to do your writing and you’ve already taken notes during your muse time, you can hopefully sit down and drop in more easily.
I’m painfully aware that you might also have many aspects of your job right now that will demand this concentrated time.
My time is so crunched that I guard my shower-time as muse time. I protect it from thoughts of the kids’ demands and my job. It’s an actual creative space for me.
My time falling asleep too. It’s interrupted by thoughts of work. I put those thoughts on a to-do list on my phone – to shut them up – and then I try to just be dreamy about my characters. There’s great data on the work our brains do while we sleep. (In quarantine, many have reported having really vivid dreams – some for the first time in their lives.) Write the vivid ones down.
Here’s the thing that I’ve found writing and parenting have in common. Each child teaches you how to raise it. Each writing project teaches you how to write it.
This is why writing advice and parenting advice don’t really ever work. And when paired together, the problems are compounded. So, take all of this for what it’s worth.
And, said in my grim tone, from one parent to another, from one writer to another – if you’re just simply overwhelmed, that sounds about right. I hope you can find a way for the page to help hold you up. Sometimes it does. But if now isn’t one of those times, that’s okay too.
Writing with kids at home? What works for you? How have you adapted? Tips and stories welcome in comments.
Julianna Baggott is the author of over 20 books, including two New York Times Notable Books of the Year, PURE and HARRIET WOLF’S SEVENTH BOOK OF WONDERS. She runs a film and television production company, Mildred’s Moving Picture Show,. Her latest book I’D REALLY PREFER NOT TO BE HERE WITH YOU is a collection of stories, many of which are in development at places like Netflix, Paramount, and Amblin. The feature film WHICH BRINGS ME TO YOU, based on the novel she co-wrote with Steve Almond, is currently streaming. www.juliannabaggott.com
I got lucky. Two teens. They sleep in. I get up early.
Once they are up, though, the writing day is shot. Day job. IT expert. Grocery man. Pressure valve for my spouse, who is the primary child wrangler.
I am in the revision phase of a WIP, though, the time when dots connect, the big picture is coming clear and small nuggets drop like pine cones in our yard. The part where the novel seems to write itself.
That’s lucky too. Somehow or other, it’s happening. Which only proves, for me, that writing in a quarantine is no different than writing at any other time. A thousand forces try to keep you from the keyboard, but even so a story demands to be written.
i love that metaphor. Learning to write in very small insecure time frames — ten minutes here or there — was a huge hurtle. The actual day felt shot but i could gather stuff in small time increments (jottingly) for the next time i’d get a chunk of say an hour and a half. that’s what i finally got to… but it’s still a struggle.
When the quarantine first hit, I had a hard time focusing. There were so many unknowns I couldn’t wrap my head around. Then once I settled in to the quarantine, I still wasn’t writing. So I had to have a serious chat with myself—either I wanted to write or I didn’t. I could find lots of excuses not to write, but only one reason to do it—I wanted to finish the book.
I did finish it and I’ve already plotted the next one and started writing it last night.
I don’t have a job outside the home, but I do have a husband who is working from home and is on the phone multiple hours a day. I have a 10 year old that I homeschool on a normal day, so homeschooling during quarantine should feel normal, but it’s not. We miss access to the resources we’ve come to rely on.
My muse time is varied. Some of my best ideas come to me in the shower. Other times it’s while I’m doing dishes. Here lately, we’ve been going on really long walks which gives me lots of time to think. I’ve also been trying to carve out small snippets of time throughout the day to write because sometimes, at night, my brain is fried and I can’t think. And I’m also one for jotting things down on my phone. I do it so those ideas will leave my head because I know I won’t be able to think about anything else until I do. So writing is happening here. It’s not pretty, but it’s getting done.
Dang it! I meant for my comment to be a separate comment, not a reply to Benjamin’s. Sorry! It’s early here (Pacific Time), so I’m not quite functioning yet.
Julianna, this is all just so good. I don’t have little ones in the house but I do have two small grandchildren. BC, my daughter asked if I could watch them three days a week while she worked. This, in the midst of a big revision, deadlines with a coach, and queries out in space. So I carved out my ‘office’ at the end of the craft table and did a lot of musing while doing a lot of other things. Your offerings here are brilliant and so necessary. I especially love that you make your students write with dishes in the sink. I’m a little OCD, so my two brilliant grandchildren put my face right up in this. It all helped me build muscle. Thank you for the wonderful post and stay well.
Hey Julianna – I have no children, but I love your posts. And this one is no exception. You’re so right about every book teaching you how to write it. And I may be kidless, but I’ve found that every book presents it’s own set of conflicts and periods of a new fog of angst we have to learn to breathe through. Heck, I think every phase of every book presents new conflicts and fogs.
The pandemic certainly enhances both. Or perhaps it just thickens the fog. But deep breathing is good exercise, even in the fog.
Thanks for being here. Your voice is soothing and your message is always encouraging.
You hit the nail on the head in So. Many. Ways. I, too, have four young kids (ages 11 months through 12 years), own my own small publishing house, and write/release four books per year. I love the way you break the challenges down and give practical insight. Thank you!
You’re a goddess, Juliana Baggot. I have been moping about my non-stop momming duties but after reading this, I should be writing about moping instead of just moping. I have been trying to channel the wisdom of some of my best teachers, guys I studied with who are serving life sentences without parole in a Penna state prison. One of my teachers said that after being angry and destructive and spending time in solitary, he decided that though his body wasn’t free, his mind could be. There is something to accepting what is and finding those moments of freedom. Thank you
Oh my gosh!
Oh my gosh!
Oh my gosh!
Hello–first paragraph! Ha! Read your tone correctly? It was damn near impossible to read your tone any other way than how you perfectly shaped and molded it from the reaches of VALHALLA.
Julia the TONE SETTER. Ooo, gotta find some cool word that means Tone Setter. Haha! Yes. yes. Research I must.
Which one of your books is written in this tone? Which one! Ooo–did I just tell on myself?
Umm, this is my first time here at Writer Unboxed, soo, umm. (Man,, I forgot what it was like to read a Julia post. It’s been so long.)
That’s what I would–say, if this wasn’t my first time here, on Writer Unboxed.
(Wha?)
Are all of your books written in this voice? Tell me, now, Julia!
Love this voice.
Love it! Love it! LOVE IT!
Ohhh, right! Tips. Stories. What works for me. Right…
Yeye, what she said.
Rahhhhh! I hate it when I miss the name THINGY, even with a 5 minute edit grace period. I quit!
Julianna
Julianna
Julianna
Julianna
Julianna
Julianna
Bahhh, I won’t be back for another few years. *sigh*
Julianna, you cracked me up at “You’re thirty four years old.” Boy, I remember 13–it can be a tough age. Mine are 19 and 21 and home from college. They’ve been self-reliant since they were teenagers so my writing continues as usual, in the afternoons typically. The morning chores are a good primer for writing, esp. the dog-walking and doing dishes. I am one of those people who need to have a clean kitchen before I write (because I also like to cook).
What I’m really missing is practicing my music with everybody working or studying at home. And evening brings dinner and conversation, movies and books. We’re enjoying our time with the children. I take it as a gift. I never expected to have so much time with them–even in high school, between school and sports, we had only a little time together.
Julianna, I have no children, but I have seen them on TV, and that is sufficiently frightening. Writing in your circumstances sounds vastly challenging, but you still sound semi-sane, so kudos to you.
My only parallel is that my mind is a wobbly merry-go-round of whirling fancies and fears, accelerated in our pandemic phase, but I have had some solace in writing a memoir for a half-hour every day. Having that set period is calming for me, and surprisingly, the small stints have added up to something tangible.
By the way, for having 34-year-old children, you look quite spry in your photo. Probably stopping all that silly bed-making has something to do with it.
I laughed:
“Maybe this is a parenting tip? Sometimes, just don’t make sense. Throw them off. Occasionally, they just look at you and then walk away.
How long have we been in quarantine? Shouldn’t she be thirty-four years old by now?”
I nodded:
“Give up as much of this bullshit as possible.”
THANK YOU! I needed this delineation between musing time and writing time. This quarantine with kids at home may extend for another year here in CA. Time to stop complaining and get serious about our new reality. I had just gotten my kids out of the house and into 1st grade before the pandemic. I think you are an alum of UNCG where I taught for 4 years. Any other articles in this arena would be totally appreciated. I like to channel Ruth Osawa who had 4 or 5 kids and was a totally amazing sculptor here in the Bay Area.