I wrote my first novel on my phone,feeding my baby to sleep every night.i'd copy and paste it, email it to myself,then copy that into a word doc, praying that i'd find time to edit it another day.now I'm writing my second exclusively on my laptop, trying to carve out physical space and time to sit and be creative. I turned my make up table into a writing desk. Like you,I write when the children are sleeping, but it is so very difficult to get to it when your eyes are closing along with theirs,and a decade of interrupted sleep has your body defying your desire to create.x
Oh my Sinead … your make up table as writing desk 😊 and all those words on your phone - do you think writing this way informed the novel at all? I’m so interested in that… when I read Sinead Gleeson’s Constellations for example I can see how it was written in shards and I love it all the more for that …
My children are in their teens now so I do get more time to write in the daytime than when they were little. We have had a German exchange student this past week, so that has involved lots of taxiing and feeding and entertaining so my work has been much more stop-start this week, reminiscent of years gone by. The only thing different now is that my head feels clearer, so I can dip in and out of writing much easier, focus a little, then leave it for another day.
It’s so refreshing to hear of the head clearing Kelly! Im feeling that slowly as my kids get older too… I hear a calmness in your ability to dip in and out a little more … ☺️ thanks for sharing x
I write around the gaps of two invisible chronic illnesses that are both variable, unpredictable and affect every system in my body. Writing often aggravates my physical symptom yet frees my heart and soul. It’s a Ground Hog day process with long periods of not writing, then having to try to get back into it all while often I’ve moved on to a different place, as this way of living is like intense mindfulness and an initiatory process of acceptance, letting go and finding meaning in the mundane, and peace in the hermit like existence that is often necessary to achieve some degree of stability.
Brilliant Layla. the Sarah Ruhl quote in the Julie Phillips book is everything. I would probably produce more in terms of volume with a less interrupted life, but maybe not more quality. and does it even matter, as in, I think the world can cope with less of my creative output?!
the times I've been forced to leave my desk to do the school run or stop typing on my phone because another snack is required often result in interesting ideas or changes of direction as you identified. lots of secret work while I do another task. I think a certain amount of space is beneficial to stop feeling really super squeezed and frustrated and resentful - in the early years I often felt like I couldn't breathe. but I survived to tell the tale, in all kinds of ways.
I really agree with you on all of this Chloe - I’m fascinated by it as a creative force. Bayo Akomolafe writes about the importance of ‘/cracks’ to ‘obliquely trace out new realities’ … I think there is a lot of power in that…
This is so timely, Layla! I wrote this Sunday's Substack post on my phone on the walk I took while my daughter was at choir practise on Wednesday night and say so in the piece, sharing photos I took along the way. I hadn't done that before – come up with a whole piece in 50 minutes, writing and thinking and crafting all at once before scheduling it and only going in to tweak yesterday. It is what it is and it's not only a record of a walk but the places that walk took me in my mind. I'll share this in the Note thread with a photo.
Thank you for this piece and your beautiful observations.
I feel like the fragmentation of my writing time has meant that I look at my pieces with fresh eyes. I have been making notes on my phone since my daughter was born and I find tiny gems that I'd completely forgotten about which are the missing piece to things that I'm writing.
I love reading these comments about where and how others write!
I'm currently writing with a milk drunk sleeping toddler on my lap, one knee bent around a dozing cat and balancing my laptop on my leg!
I needed this read this morning, I’m working on some poetry before work, 5 minutes after my son headed out to daycare with my husband after a 15 minute tantrum over getting dressed. Thanks for this.
I relate so much to all of this, Layla! I too write in-between, in the comings and goings, and along the way. Like so many, I often write when my kids are sleeping. I am always my most creative when it's still dark out, so a lot of my pictures would be a dark blob (with a small glare of my phone light). My kids are still young but no longer babies. During those baby years I mostly "wrote" through voice notes as I walked around and around my local park - baby either strapped to me or in the stroller. At the time I was way too tired to take those notes and do something with them, though I've often thought about creating space to go back and re-listen (there are hundreds of them!)
I love this post Layla, and the idea of collecting and collating all the different places we’re writing in and from. So far this week I’ve written: at my desk in the dining room before anyone else is awake, at the same desk while my kids play Minecraft and interrupt to request snacks, on my phone in the dark while trying to get a sick child to sleep, on my phone the sidelines at football training, on my phone while the kettle boils in my office job, on my phone in the queue at Tescos. I’m starting to experiment with voice notes because more and more the ideas come at times when I can’t write them down.
as I read this Ellen I'm imagining a little map of you moving through the world to all these places with a stream of words pouring out as you move :-) x
I really like that image Layla 🥰 It’s maybe more of a trickle than a stream sometimes, but I feel like the momentum is the most important part at the moment x
I loved this piece, Layla. I am grateful for all the women writers who are placing motherhood centrally in their work rather than writing around/over it. My kids are seven and twelve now and after flexischooling/ home educating for a while, they are both at school full time. So I have more time to write than I used to but I also feel more pressure to monetise my work than I did before, which can do strange things to the creative process.
I love your idea of making a collage of writing motherhood. As soon as I read this, I took a picture of my writing desk. It's not really a desk but a worktop above the washing machine in my kitchen, surrounded by pots and mugs. It's grubby and cobwebby and I have to jam a roll of clingfilm into the space above the washing machine to stop it from rattling when it spins - but it has a beautiful view of the bird feeders in the back garden, and I've done all my best work here. Lucky to have the space at all, I guess. I've posted the picture in your notes on this piece :-) X
Hi Caroline. Yes! I’m so grateful to those who place their caregiving centre stage also, it’s been massively important to me and my writing to see these examples in black and white. Important and inspiring.
PLEASE do send your image, it is exactly what we are all doing and I’d love to include. You can DM it here on SS, or email it to Layla.omara@gmail.com xxxxx
Thanks, Layla! I stuck the image in the comments under this piece in ‘Notes’. Let me know if you’d like me to email it too, and thanks again for the invitation to contribute to this important creative project! x
I wrote my first novel on my phone,feeding my baby to sleep every night.i'd copy and paste it, email it to myself,then copy that into a word doc, praying that i'd find time to edit it another day.now I'm writing my second exclusively on my laptop, trying to carve out physical space and time to sit and be creative. I turned my make up table into a writing desk. Like you,I write when the children are sleeping, but it is so very difficult to get to it when your eyes are closing along with theirs,and a decade of interrupted sleep has your body defying your desire to create.x
Oh my Sinead … your make up table as writing desk 😊 and all those words on your phone - do you think writing this way informed the novel at all? I’m so interested in that… when I read Sinead Gleeson’s Constellations for example I can see how it was written in shards and I love it all the more for that …
My children are in their teens now so I do get more time to write in the daytime than when they were little. We have had a German exchange student this past week, so that has involved lots of taxiing and feeding and entertaining so my work has been much more stop-start this week, reminiscent of years gone by. The only thing different now is that my head feels clearer, so I can dip in and out of writing much easier, focus a little, then leave it for another day.
It’s so refreshing to hear of the head clearing Kelly! Im feeling that slowly as my kids get older too… I hear a calmness in your ability to dip in and out a little more … ☺️ thanks for sharing x
I write around the gaps of two invisible chronic illnesses that are both variable, unpredictable and affect every system in my body. Writing often aggravates my physical symptom yet frees my heart and soul. It’s a Ground Hog day process with long periods of not writing, then having to try to get back into it all while often I’ve moved on to a different place, as this way of living is like intense mindfulness and an initiatory process of acceptance, letting go and finding meaning in the mundane, and peace in the hermit like existence that is often necessary to achieve some degree of stability.
Brilliant Layla. the Sarah Ruhl quote in the Julie Phillips book is everything. I would probably produce more in terms of volume with a less interrupted life, but maybe not more quality. and does it even matter, as in, I think the world can cope with less of my creative output?!
the times I've been forced to leave my desk to do the school run or stop typing on my phone because another snack is required often result in interesting ideas or changes of direction as you identified. lots of secret work while I do another task. I think a certain amount of space is beneficial to stop feeling really super squeezed and frustrated and resentful - in the early years I often felt like I couldn't breathe. but I survived to tell the tale, in all kinds of ways.
I really agree with you on all of this Chloe - I’m fascinated by it as a creative force. Bayo Akomolafe writes about the importance of ‘/cracks’ to ‘obliquely trace out new realities’ … I think there is a lot of power in that…
This is so timely, Layla! I wrote this Sunday's Substack post on my phone on the walk I took while my daughter was at choir practise on Wednesday night and say so in the piece, sharing photos I took along the way. I hadn't done that before – come up with a whole piece in 50 minutes, writing and thinking and crafting all at once before scheduling it and only going in to tweak yesterday. It is what it is and it's not only a record of a walk but the places that walk took me in my mind. I'll share this in the Note thread with a photo.
Thank you for this piece and your beautiful observations.
I feel like the fragmentation of my writing time has meant that I look at my pieces with fresh eyes. I have been making notes on my phone since my daughter was born and I find tiny gems that I'd completely forgotten about which are the missing piece to things that I'm writing.
I love reading these comments about where and how others write!
I'm currently writing with a milk drunk sleeping toddler on my lap, one knee bent around a dozing cat and balancing my laptop on my leg!
I needed this read this morning, I’m working on some poetry before work, 5 minutes after my son headed out to daycare with my husband after a 15 minute tantrum over getting dressed. Thanks for this.
so glad it landed for you at the right moment x
I relate so much to all of this, Layla! I too write in-between, in the comings and goings, and along the way. Like so many, I often write when my kids are sleeping. I am always my most creative when it's still dark out, so a lot of my pictures would be a dark blob (with a small glare of my phone light). My kids are still young but no longer babies. During those baby years I mostly "wrote" through voice notes as I walked around and around my local park - baby either strapped to me or in the stroller. At the time I was way too tired to take those notes and do something with them, though I've often thought about creating space to go back and re-listen (there are hundreds of them!)
I love this post Layla, and the idea of collecting and collating all the different places we’re writing in and from. So far this week I’ve written: at my desk in the dining room before anyone else is awake, at the same desk while my kids play Minecraft and interrupt to request snacks, on my phone in the dark while trying to get a sick child to sleep, on my phone the sidelines at football training, on my phone while the kettle boils in my office job, on my phone in the queue at Tescos. I’m starting to experiment with voice notes because more and more the ideas come at times when I can’t write them down.
as I read this Ellen I'm imagining a little map of you moving through the world to all these places with a stream of words pouring out as you move :-) x
I really like that image Layla 🥰 It’s maybe more of a trickle than a stream sometimes, but I feel like the momentum is the most important part at the moment x
It’s the drops that make an ocean :-) x
I loved this piece, Layla. I am grateful for all the women writers who are placing motherhood centrally in their work rather than writing around/over it. My kids are seven and twelve now and after flexischooling/ home educating for a while, they are both at school full time. So I have more time to write than I used to but I also feel more pressure to monetise my work than I did before, which can do strange things to the creative process.
I love your idea of making a collage of writing motherhood. As soon as I read this, I took a picture of my writing desk. It's not really a desk but a worktop above the washing machine in my kitchen, surrounded by pots and mugs. It's grubby and cobwebby and I have to jam a roll of clingfilm into the space above the washing machine to stop it from rattling when it spins - but it has a beautiful view of the bird feeders in the back garden, and I've done all my best work here. Lucky to have the space at all, I guess. I've posted the picture in your notes on this piece :-) X
Hi Caroline. Yes! I’m so grateful to those who place their caregiving centre stage also, it’s been massively important to me and my writing to see these examples in black and white. Important and inspiring.
PLEASE do send your image, it is exactly what we are all doing and I’d love to include. You can DM it here on SS, or email it to Layla.omara@gmail.com xxxxx
I see your image now on notes 🥰
Thanks, Layla! I stuck the image in the comments under this piece in ‘Notes’. Let me know if you’d like me to email it too, and thanks again for the invitation to contribute to this important creative project! x