Last year Pulitzer-prize winning author Michael Chabon wrote a magazine article entitled ‘Are Kids The Enemy of Writing?’, which described how he was once advised by another great author to never have children: ‘You can write great books, or you can have kids. It’s up to you.’ He wondered whether he might have written four more books if his four children hadn’t ‘stolen his time, narrowed his compass, curtailed his freedom.’
Sound
Well I have four small children (actually, I keep saying they’re small because it makes me sound young, but they’re all at school now and the eldest is almost a teenager) and I couldn’t disagree more. Firstly, I would hate for my children to think they had ‘stolen my time’. They didn’t ask to be born! But more importantly, my children inspire me to write. I became an author not in spite of them, but thanks to them.
Of course, the challenges are immense, lack of time and lack of energy being the most obvious. My schedule is dictated completely by the children’s needs. Between school runs, homework, shopping and cooking, my working day is very short. Weekends are a write-off, ahem, as far as writing is concerned, because family activities come first. And mothers tend to be ruled by guilt, so even if I do have an hour to myself, it’s very difficult to take ownership and say: This my time to write. You’re constantly questioning whether you should be getting a proper job that pays more, or using this time to clean the oven. I wrote my first novel almost entirely at night, waiting even until my husband had gone to sleep – so determined was I not to disrupt family life at all.
But parenthood also presents opportunities for the writer. Motherhood makes you a master of time management. Every moment counts. How much do you treasure those naptimes? Did you ever think you could get that much done with an hour to yourself? When your time is severely curtailed, there’s no opportunity for procrastination. You get those 500 words down.
And once you learn how to write in sprints, to pick up quickly where you left off, you realise the beauty of writing is that it can be done anywhere. I keep a notebook in my handbag and if I have a few minutes while I’m waiting in the school carpark, I’ll write a quick paragraph. You don’t need a laptop; in fact I learned that writing longhand brings out the best in me. I think up plot strands and phrases while I’m driving; I have even been known to type sentences of a novel into my phone while standing in the supermarket queue.
None of this is possible for people who have full-time jobs, their minds occupied all day with thoughts they didn’t choose. I used to find stay-at-home-parenthood lonely, but now I treasure that headspace. I used to lament the loss of my career, but now I’m grateful that it led me to a new one.
Having a baby is exhausting in a soul-crushing way that is hard to imagine until you’ve experienced it. My brain was so fried during those sleepless baby and toddler years that I could barely read a book, never mind write one. But once the fog has lifted, you are filled with energy and creativity. Because children inspire. They come up with the most hilarious, genius takes on the world. And children give you confidence. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, as must the writer. Even the most naturally shy (like me) mother can find herself singing a silly song in public, at the top of her voice, just because it makes the baby laugh. And that’s the kind of brazen confidence a writer needs, to be brave enough to put their creations out into the world.
Catherine Fearns is a music journalist from Liverpool, UK. She holds a degree in History from Oxford University, a Masters from the London School of Economics, and is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Geneva Writers Group. When Catherine is not writing, she plays guitar in a heavy metal band, mainly to annoy her four children.
Sound by Catherine Fearns (£6.99) is available now. Find out more here: www.catherine-fearns.com)