How to Write

Okay, I know I have theoretically been doing it for almost four years, but can someone explain to me how to get writing done as a parent?

—Lindsay King-Miller

Women writers, some of whom had children

Wow, Lindsay’s oldest is four already? And the baby? I started to reply, “good luck with that.” Then I remembered a hero of my youth, Alta, who demanded, in the 60s, “how many times have we had clean sheets and nothing on sheets of paper?” She had young children then. Not much has changed, apparently, for those who want careers, family, friends and art too.

I used to be fascinated by stories about how people managed to write. Failing to write regularly myself, I sought the secrets of those who succeeded. Write every day, they said. Yes, yes, I replied, but what time do you sit down to write? Or if you’re Hemingway, what time do you stand up to write? Early morning? I get up at 5 to go teach, can’t do that. Nights? By the time my stepchildren were asleep, I was braindead.

It doesn’t help to know Murakami rises at 4 a.m., writes for five or six hours, goes for a run or a swim in the afternoon, reads in the evening and goes to bed at nine. Murakami and his wife decided against having children, and in any case, that Spartan schedule of his developed after he was famous and sold the bar. I’ve seen a photo of his orderly desk, in the right-hand corner a jar full of freshly sharpened pencils. A clue? Or a nod to Hemingway, who ritualistically sharpened pencils before beginning to write?

Tillie Olsen’s Silences (1975) was a revelation: she knew what I was talking about, unlike the mostly male “how I write” narratives I’d been reading. “I know I haven’t powers enough to divide myself into one who earns and one who creates,” said Olsen, talking about the long silences in the careers of writers, particularly women. I already knew the women writers before my time had mostly been childless. Olsen lists them. But she also lists those of the 1970s who had children, including two personal favorites of mine, Joan Didion and Ursula Le Guin. Women artists with families have become even more common now. Common—not easy.

Maya Angelou sometimes got a hotel room, tried to be there by 6:30 each morning to write, had art removed from its walls, turned it as much into a nun’s cell as she could and wrote there until two in the afternoon. But that was after she’d made money. She had one child, and although she wrote sporadically throughout her performance and civil rights activist years, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was not published until she was 41. And yet, as a successful writer with a grown son, she still needed that hotel room.

Stephen King worked as an industrial laundry laborer while managing to write and sell stories to men’s magazines. He said those stories paid for his children’s health care. He wrote his first novel, Carrie, on weekends and evenings while teaching high school English. I taught English too and don’t know how he did that. My evenings and weekends were consumed by planning lessons and grading papers, not to mention cleaning house and cooking meals. King had a wife. I did not.

He wrote in the garage during a few of those years. Surely his wife Tabitha kept the three kids occupied, although she’s also a writer. She once said she put ten years into establishing his career. When did she write? Seldom, it seems, until her husband had a couple best sellers and the kids were in school: then her first novel became possible. Tillie Olsen’s silences again.

García Márquez wrote a page a day. Do that for a year and you’d have a novel, or at least the first draft of one. Sounds simple. Never was, for me. I blame the years I had another woman’s children, although I wouldn’t trade them for any number of books. I blame having to earn a living, the consuming nature of teaching. But I also blame my own resistance to writing and where that comes from is another story. Olsen again: “The habits of a lifetime when everything else had to come before writing are not easily broken…”

Remind me, Lindsay asks. Writing and parenting: how’s that work again? Someone said, family, friends, a career and being a writer—you can do three of those things, but not all four. I have no answers. I only know when I began to write daily: after I retired from teaching full-time; after I abandoned most social engagements; after I began staying home in my quiet house, in what Rilke called “unconfined solitude.” Here I gather the words as they come and tap them into a document like this one.

 

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14 Responses to How to Write

  1. C.M. Mayo says:

    Hola dear Pat,

    A most thought-provoking post. I find the ability to sit down and write to be more a question of the coherence of my intentions than any time constraint, however, of course, many things can take time– loads & loads, even mountains of time– away from writing and, worse, add “noise.” Distractions, worry… It can end up being so much easier to fill a chunk of free time by plopping down in front of a screen– and even the supposedly busiest people oftentimes have plenty of time to do that, so it would seem. Another way to think about it– a way I’ve been thinking about it in recent months– is as “managing attentional focus.” Cal Newport is my guru. I am ever huffing & puffing up the learning curve here… I’ll be posting something on using the Freedom app in the next couple of months.

  2. Agustín Cadena says:

    This is great! I am sharing it. Thanks for writing! <3

  3. Gregg says:

    “family, friends, a career and being a writer—you can do three of those things, but not all four.” Haha. Now that I am retired, I am having lunch with friends. I had neglected them while doing the other three things for decades.

    I write, but mostly I play piano. I do not have a schedule, but practicing scales (and much et cetera) is something I do every day, like meditation. The every day part is important to many of us artists, although some writers (although not many musicians) work in manic fits and spurts, to use a colorful English cliché.

  4. I rented myself an office. Really, with five kids, it was the only solution. Worked great, too — and I lost 15 lb.s by moving across town from my refridgerator.

    • dubrava says:

      Love it! Never heard that story before. And yep, one of my own favorite methods of procrastination is to go look in the fridge.

  5. drosenb says:

    While I don’t have kids, teaching is like having 100 of them a day. While I loved my job, it ate up all my creative energy and left me exhausted at the end of the day. Weekends were totally chore and family time. Thank god for the summers where I took classes and worked on my art full time, but it was never enough. Now retired, my greatest luxury is being in my studio whenever I want. While working in the house is often a distraction, especially in the summer when my garden calls, I find the convenience of walking into an adjacent room to work, even for just a few hours, totally worth it. Scheduling and focus are paramount –making sure I carve out the time, instead of watching documentaries on Netflix.

    • dubrava says:

      Deb, exactly like having 100 kids a day, unless you were an academic teacher at DSA and then it was 165. I wrote so little during those years. And yes, the studio in the house is wonderful, isn’t it? Regardless of the dangers, as Carson (Denver Crossroads) and Bob Jaeger point out here, like the fridge. I have found myself rising from the computer mid-sentence, going downstairs and opening the fridge before I even realize what I’m doing.

  6. Bob Jaeger says:

    Ah, the siren call of the fridge! As to writing, I have great respect for those who can do it with discipline. I’ve never been able to grow that talent except, perhaps, in the rewriting process. The initial motivation has usually had to arrive from somewhere other than my determination to sit and write—the heart perhaps, for lack of a better explanation—then the discipline kicks in, and the scribbles on napkins, receipts, whatever I can find if I’ve left home without my tattered little notebook. Your blog prompts have been a most enjoyable exception

  7. Jenny-Lynn says:

    Pat, this lovely post is timely and very much appreciated! My mantra of late has been “butt in chair, twenty minutes, butt in chair, you can do it”. As for having career, family, friends, AND writing? I see the impossibility for me of even three out of of four. Letting my craving for writing grow day by day and become as vital to me as anything else I love (chocolate and biking come to mind), must and will succeed in the long run. Meanwhile, I get to enjoy the fruits of your kind and consistent labor. Well done!

    • dubrava says:

      Thanks, J-L! Your last blog was excellent. But I do wish you’d stop mentioning chocolate. I’m terrible susceptible.

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