Two months before my first child was due, a friend who was already a mother gave me a warning.
Through the Wall
“If you want to finish that book of yours, you’d better do it now,” she said, about the novel I had started a few months earlier. “You can’t do anything when babies come. Nothing. You’re done for.”
I wasn’t sure enough that she was joking so I wrote as much as I had time for but at the tail end of pregnancy, it was hard.
As well as working through a list of about 187 things an antenatal class had decreed we needed to buy/ do/ think before our baby arrived, there was also the small matter of doing as much paid work as I could before the baby arrived. I was a freelance journalist; maternity pay would be minimal.
When our son was born in July 2016, I was still miles away from a completed first draft and in the weeks afterwards, it felt like my friend had been right. How <could> I ever write again when there were so many things to sterilise and boil wash? And when I wasn’t too sleep deprived to write, I was busy doing important tasks like weeping with joy about his existence.
Gradually though, we found our feet with parenthood and my brain expanded out again. Ideas would pop into my head about my book’s plot, characters, ending. I was still exhausted but it felt like I was ready to use the adult part of my brain for something beyond reality TV too.
Sitting down at my laptop when my baby was asleep felt calming. I was still learning how to be a mum but I knew how to write, and I got a huge sense of still being me when I did.
Before maternity leave, when my days had more of a routine, I would always prioritise paid work over my book. Now though there was no ‘normal’ day and no expectation that I would do anything work-wise so even if I did 15 minutes on the novel, it felt like a win. Which was good, because that’s often all I did.
When my son napped next to me, I grabbed the laptop and typed in bed. When he slept curled into my body, I fleshed out characters on my phone. I’d do half an hour on the sofa when he went to bed at night before my eyes drooped. The ideas I scribbled down during night feeds were often nonsense but occasionally there was something useful.
I had small windows to write in but because of that, I was focused. I didn’t procrastinate on social media like I used to (luckily I had hours to do that during feeds anyway).
Another reason I think writing a book with a newborn worked is a perspective shift: I told myself that if it was rubbish, it didn’t matter: at this point in life I just had to get some words down. Perhaps I could do a heavy edit later, or perhaps it would just confirm to me that I couldn’t do it. Either way, with this tiny human relying on me, this life ambition stopped being so daunting.
Social life distractions are minimal with a newborn, as everyone just presumes you’re rocking someone to sleep or covered in sick. Even when a rare opportunity did come up, I often didn’t take it, feeling too attached to my sofa and new family. But I did want <something> for me. I just wanted that ‘thing’ to be at home. The book project was perfect; all books can be written in pyjamas and if you ignore your pulsing RSI, erm, even on the sofa.
My manuscript was finally finished in February 2018, when my son was one and a half. I was lucky enough that a friend passed on a contact for an awesome agent and, with shaky fingers, I winged my first draft over to her. Diana was the first person other than me to see Through The Wall and she took me on as a client, worked with me on edits and helped me secure a book deal six months later.
It might not be the usual method of writing a book but for me, the disordered schedule of a baby worked and now it feels like in my life, books and babies are always oddly intertwined.
I had my first meeting with Diana on the way to hospital for IVF treatment (both my sons were born through IVF) and I took the phone call telling me I had got a book deal when I was seven months pregnant with my second child. Somehow, having my boys helped me write the book I’d always wanted to. Even if I did miss out on quite a bit of TOWIE.
Caroline’s debut novel, Through The Wall is released on October 3rd (Avon)