Summer writing

When faced with the prospect of parenthood, I often think that ‘Do I want a baby?’ is entirely the wrong question a person might ask themselves.

‘Do I want to figure out a way of earning a living whilst not loosing my mind each summer, across the approximately 14 years my child will be in education?’ feels like it would be more appropriate.

Yes it’s that time of year again. A panic inducing sprint to soak up every moment of quiet and time alone before we descend into six weeks of non-stop providing of snacks, cleaning up of messes and trying to get some amount of wholesome activity into our children, whilst we also do enough work not to default on our mortgages. And that’s without even considering writing work that is not yet paid.

For the past few summers I have accidently been swamped with work. Last year I was publishing a book, the year before that I was on deadline for that book and the year before that I was writing a dissertation for a masters degree. Oops. I swore I would not allow that to happen again this year and of course… it sort of has.

As usual, I have ever so slightly overestimated how quickly I can finish a draft whilst also running a business, launching a writers membership, parenting a disabled teen and, oh yes, getting married. I am only half way through a first draft that I was optimistically hoping to finish by the start of the summer holidays. So once again, as well as doing writing coaching work in the pockets of time I get care for my disabled teen (and in all honesty, when he is quite happy watching a screen and bouncing on a trampoline), I will also be writing furiously to try and meet the end of summer deadline I have agreed to with my agent.

Clearly, I never learn.

This year feels a little different though. My teens are sleeping in more, and as a woman in my 40s, I am very much not sleeping in. So the mornings are proving to be an excellent time to work with very little interruption. I’m also well and truly over my concerns about screen time. While ten years ago I would never have dreamed of letting them have free access to devices, this is something I have just had to get over. Complex families don’t always function in ideal ways.

So while I will get very little breaks from my son over the six weeks, I’ll have plenty of small pockets of time where I’ll be able to work and write, as long as I can do so amongst noise and interruption (a skill I have honed out of necessity).

One of the delights of writing and particularly writing a first draft of something, is being able to immerse yourself in another world. One that entirely exists between your head and the page. One you can access anywhere. I can write scenes in my head, floating in a pool with my son. I can watch him toss stones into our local river whilst figuring out a story problem. I can sit quietly with him as he falls asleep and watch a scene’s dialogue unfold in my mind, to write down when I sit at my laptop early the next morning.

We talk about how hard it is to write at the same time as having to care for others and it is hard. But it is also an escape. It is a world inside a world. When I cannot go anywhere, when I am tethered to my son and it is a hard day and I can’t take my eyes from him, I can write in my head. I can be in two worlds at once. Writing whilst caring for him can be a way to inhabit more the just our home, which is where we spend so much of our time.

I have long fought against the idea of martyrdom in motherhood. My sons needs are vastly higher than other 15 year olds and rather than that rendering my own needs unmeetable, it makes them even more vital. The more we need to give and be present as parents, the more we need to keep our own selves in equilibrium. Writing is one of the ways I keep my equilibrium.

So while I am extremely glad I don’t have a publication or promotion to do this summer, I am not mad about having a first draft to finish. I’m not mad that I will be up before everyone else, working in the quiet early mornings. I am not mad that as I lie waiting for my son to finally fall asleep that I have a scene to nut out in my head. I am not mad about it at all.

I don’t think those of us who are parents and caregivers need to be afraid of taking time for ourselves over the summer. I don’t think some lazy mornings and some extra screen time will really matter in the long run. I don’t think we need to sacrifice every inch of our time to the alter of our children, while we keep them busy and entertained and enriched.

I think what they need more than that, is for us to be sane.

And writing is one of the ways I stay sane.

Amongst the myriad of instagram posts declaring “18 summers” and creating magic for their children, I will be putting out a different kind of message. I am creating a bit of magic for myself. Just me and a scrivener document, in the early hours of the morning. Because it’s my summer too, and this is how I would like to spend it.

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Over the summer in THE FOLD writers membership there will be extra co-writing sessions and additional audio sessions to gently guide us all through this season of chaos and delight. We’re kicking off next Wednesday 9th at 7pm (bst) with a Summer Writing workshop where we will come together to take a look at how we can each approach our writing over this chaotic season, as well as do a mid year check in on how we are getting on with our WIP.