Why I don't write during naptime

from Writers on Writing, first published in Writer's Digest (2022)

Whenever someone asks me for my go-to, tried and true writing advice, a lump will often form in the back of my throat. I know what they’re looking for. Little nuggets of wisdom such as you must join a writing group (meh), write every day (not really), read as much as you can (true), explore books outside your preferred genres (very true), don’t be afraid to scrap the whole thing and start fresh (very true but also very hard). The thing is, none of those things are possible for me without One Big Thing. And while I am happy to chat about the nuances of MFAs, em dashes, writing workshops, or facing one’s desk east or west, I can’t do any of that without childcare.

Weekly I hear from mothers who have always wanted to write (or paint or dance or start a business) asking how I’m able to be both mother and writer. Do you write at naptime? they ask earnestly. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at such a question. On one hand, yes—there were many years I had to write at naptime. On the other hand, the assumption that naptime, the one break for a caregiver, should be used for any semblance of a career or passion is disheartening at best, a primal scream at my worst. 

My first child was born in 2011, a few weeks before my husband began a twelve year career change into medicine and a few weeks after I officially declined a spot at the MFA program of my choice. My second child was born two and half years later. Two more children came after that. It is difficult to encapsulate the emotions behind trying to write in the pockets of time between morning sickness, sleep schedules, meal prep, playdates, preschool drop offs, and most importantly, with very little money for childcare. My mental health suffered. My marriage suffered. My writing limped along, always turning to real life narration of what was right in front of me (motherhood). 

Now of course this was also the best of times. I love my children. I love the women I found to raise my children beside. Have you ever smelled a newborn or heard a baby laugh? It’s like a hard and brazen drug. But the writing during naptime? Not great. And somewhere in the haze of an unplanned pregnancy, I realized the life I had built was no longer sustainable. For nearly a decade I had lived at the edge of a cliff. A beautiful cliff, but one that I was about to topple from. I needed change and I needed it now. 

The first obstacle was money, solved with both pleasant and unpleasant part time jobs. The second was finding childcare, another journey in and of itself. But oh how the tides turned once I could make space on that cliff for something other than laundry and fruit snacks. I made a schedule, I got an agent, and together we came up with a plan. I decided I was ready to take a break from personal narrative and for four years, I worked on a novel. I also returned to poetry, publishing three books in three years. 

I’ve learned so much since my years sitting on that cliff. I learned I love writing fiction. I learned to bend toward that strange, silly, raging voice that’s been there all my life. Most of all, I learned that Stephen King’s advice to “write with the door closed and rewrite with the door open” does not apply to mothers. Instead we must build our own doors and hope they are strong enough to hold us.