How can parents write a novel in a pandemic (without going mad)?

Even in the best of times, parents worry they’ll never have the time or bandwidth to write a novel. Now they might be thinking this dream of theirs will have to wait until the kids grow up.

However, I’d like to argue that now might be the time to start. It might be the cure for all the worry in these times. Writing a novel for fifteen minutes a day will bring you joy and help you keep a piece of you just for yourself.

“Writing is a matter of sanity. Even if no one ever read anything I wrote, I would still write.” — Jodi Picoult

I won’t lie: writing a novel after you have kids adds extra challenges, even when it’s not a pandemic. I wrote my first published novel, Trafficked, when my kids were this age. I was teaching part-time on weekends and I had no babysitter. I wrote it in the brief gasps of motherhood.

The pandemic has added to the worry and the work of parenting, so forgive yourself if you’ve taken a little break from the writing. Even in the best of times, parent writers have put their novels on hold.

Alice Munro switched to writing short stories from novels because “when you are responsible for running a house and taking care of small children, particularly in the days before disposable diapers or ubiquitous automatic washing machines, it’s hard to arrange for large chunks of time.” Toni Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, every morning at 4 am while raising her two kids. Judy Blume didn’t start writing until her youngest kids was in kindergarten.

Author Louise Erdrich said: “Every female writer starts out with a list of other female writers in her head. Mine includes, quite pointedly, a mother list.”

Over Covid, both published and unpublished novelist parents have found it especially difficult to write. They’ve cried (or tweeted): My kids are interrupting! My kids are miserable! I am miserable too! I’m writing in the bathroom! Our society has experienced the highest levels of depression, anxiety and grief, and this has spread to our kids, so it’s no wonder it’s been hard for all of us to dive into our imaginations and write.

So, what is the solution? How can you keep writing this novel of your heart? I have four key suggestions.

1.Write for Fifteen Minutes a Day

In tough parenting or life moments, the trick is to lower the bar. Write for fifteen minutes each day. If you have extra time, great, keep writing. If you can do two fifteen minute sessions, that’s also wonderful. Make a rule you can’t look at social media or the news until you do it.

2. Do Writing Warm-Ups with Your Kids

Another thing you can do are Writing Warm-Ups, also called side writing. You bring a notebook everywhere you go and you brainstorm scenes and characters throughout your day, while you’re doing errands or you’re with your kids. Every time you’re waiting in line or outside school pick-up, you can write Warm-Ups. That way, when you sit down to write a scene, you’ve done the creative brain prep and your pen will fly across the page. Copy out my list of Writing Warm-Ups here and paste it in the front of your journal so that you have them with you.

“Once my kids got into things like sports and orchestra, I did a lot of writing in waiting rooms. It helped my writing because I had to maintain narrative across interruptions.” – Megan Marshall, Pulizer Prize-winner, mom of two

“My daughter had a really long appt today, so I brought my laptop, sat in my car and worked, and I know a lot of moms understand rn, but it was one of the most productive writing hours I’ve had since covid. No interruptions, no distractions. Maybe I need to just work from my car?” (Twitter) — Allison Winn Scotch, NYT Bestseller, mom of two

3. Write for joy.

No matter what’s happening, whether you’re drafting or doing Writing Warm-Ups, think of this time as fifteen precious minutes for your own soul. Fifteen minutes to remember who you are. Fifteen minutes for your imagination. Moms and dads, you deserve it.

4. Join a class or community of writers with children.

I’m teaching a novel-writing class online for writer parents who have the goal of finishing a first draft in three months by writing a minimum of fifteen minutes a day. Kids are welcome to pop in or write with us. It’s an encouraging community of writers who uplift one another. You can also form a critique or accountability group. I’ve always had a critique group of fellow parent writers. We support one another in the parenting and the writing life, and it’s helped me finish my novels.

“The beginning is always today.” — Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, mother of three.

Good luck, fellow parent writers. You can do this thing. We’re in this together.