I loved this column and rather than telling any of the stories of self-important men who think that they're geniuses I want to tell the story of how I wrote my trilogy back in the early 2000s. https://twitter.com/MonicaHesse/status/1385715349027491843

When I got the contract to write the books that became FREEDOM'S GATE, FREEDOM'S APPRENTICE, and FREEDOM'S SISTERS, my older child was two, and I had just become pregnant with my second.

So I scheduled the first novel's deadline to be about a month before my due date. This backfired slightly when I got the revisions from my editor at almost the exact moment that my water broke. "Can you have these back in two weeks?" she asked. "Absolutely, positive not," I said.

Anyway, when writing book 2, I had a three-year-old and also a colicky newborn. The three-year-old would go to preschool and I would come home and try to get the baby to sleep and then I would drop absolutely everything else and do nothing but write.

On the weekends, my husband would take both kids out for a walk so I had a few hours to work.

It was with Book 3 that things got really interesting. The older kid was four, the younger kid was one, and the younger kid was now resisting naps.

But! She WOULD still nap if you took her for a ride in the car.

So.

I would take the older kid to preschool and then I would strap the toddler into her car seat and put the laptop in the passenger seat and start driving.

When she went to sleep, I would find somewhere to pull over and park (the parking lots for Minneapolis parks were ideal) and then I'd open my laptop, prop it against the steering wheel and write until I heard her stirring.

At which point I would close the laptop again and put it to the side and drive until she went back to sleep.

I really don't think I could do this now. The ergonomics were horrifying.

I used to fantasize about something where I'd have a table right next to my car so I could get out and maybe have someone bring me a coffee. Even a picnic table would have been an ergonomic wonderland compared to the driver's seat of a Geo Prizm.

Anyway, that was how I wrote one of my books. So you can imagine how I feel about men getting all swoony about how their wife asked them to go get parmesan cheese for the dinner she was probably right in the middle of making, and which he was definitely going to eat.

These days my younger kid is practically an adult and the major distraction I have to work around is Twitter and the fact that the pandemic seems to have obliterated my executive function. Possibly I should take myself for drives just to get away from the internet connection.

But I just want to add to this, nearly every woman writer I know with children -- even those with supportive spouses -- has stories like this. Bribery with screen time, writing on a note pad at the playground in between the kid yelling "Mom WATCH, you're NOT WATCHING"...

There are also a non-zero number of men writers with children who have stories like this.

But the Philip Roths of the world, who feel put-upon to be sent out for milk are almost 100% cis men and I'm pretty sure also mostly hetero and white.

Also, here's Newbery-medalist Kelly Barnhill talking about how she managed writing time, and I would put her craft up against Roth's craft any day of the week and twice on Sundays. https://twitter.com/kellybarnhill/status/1386365492403736579

I want to add one more thing, which is that I know these strategies will not work for everyone. If you are a mom of a toddler who hasn't been writing, please do not read this thread and think, "well SHE managed it ... I must be a loser."

My point is not, "I did this and therefore ANYONE can!"

It's that men who are so precious with the writing time that they pout if asked to participate in household tasks in any way are actually just being assholes.

There's a WHOLE lot of space between these two extremes. Most writers -- MOST -- find time where they can, between day jobs and household tasks and children and other obligations.

The Philip Roth thing where you're a precious genius whose time is sacred, who cannot be disturbed for mundane concerns such as a missing dinner ingredient ... that is heavily a self-serving myth.

If your process reqlly requires undisturbed multi-hour chunks, and you're married with kids, you need to schedule those in consultation with your partner and you also need to schedule times that your partner gets some undisturbed time to do whatever.