Writing While Needed By Others

How to shield yourself and your writing against the forces of Bright Shiny Object Syndrome, Selfishness, and Guilt

I attended a packed-house launch event last night for Bay Area author Julie Fingersh, who just published a memoir called Stay: A Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas.

Julie’s interviewer, Diane Provo, homed in on something very specific that Julie wrote as a launching point for their conversation, a line in the book in which Julie revealed, “I could not access myself in the company of the needs of others.”

Julie was writing about her journey to write and finish this very book, and how she needed to get away from her house, her husband, her kids, and even her dogs to be able to write. Over the course of these seven years it’s taken her to finish her memoir, she rented a cabin periodically to binge write. For years, she shared, she felt ashamed that she couldn’t just write at home. Her dad, practical and frugal, often asked her why not work in her office, or in a local coffee shop. She wondered, too, until finally it dawned on her: She just couldn’t. She needed to be completely separate from people who needed her and depended on her in order to be present to herself.

In my six-month memoir class I talk about Bright Shiny Object Syndrome. Its symptoms vary from author to author and might show up in the form of your house being extra spotless, or being all the way caught up on your laundry (when you might otherwise be writing). Everything and anything is a distraction from your writing if you suffer from BSOS. Yes, it’s the people in your life, but it’s also social media, or the dogs, or the yardwork.

One of my She Writes Press authors had a sign made for her door, the kind you’d see at a hotel that hangs over the doorknob. It said, simply: “Writer at Work.” I think you can buy these online now, but this was ten or more years ago and she’d had it special-ordered. She’d hang it on her doorknob so her family knew not only was she writing, but that the writing was in fact her work.

Writers who don’t make money off their writing can struggle mightily to claim space, to even show up to their writing. The endeavor will be seen by them and others as a hobby. Culturally, we admire authors, but we treat the act of writing as a leisure activity. It’s not something we take seriously, unless or until the writer in question a well-published or successful author.

Women, especially mothers, will see their writing endeavors as selfish. Years ago I had Claire Dederer on my podcast on the subject of selfishness because she’d written a piece, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” that delved into this subject and which resonated deeply with me. I’ve written all my books since my son was born, and in the early years I would be racked with guilt when I went to my office to write. Like most mothers, I faced what felt like a binary choice: spend time with my kid or spend time with my creative pursuits. It never felt like it could be both/and, and for years, instead of feeling like I was succeeding at both (which I was), I felt like I was failing both. Never enough of me to go around.

The question of whether and how you can access yourself in the company of the needs of others is a powerful inquiry, I think. This line drew applause from the audience last night, and Julie posed the question: “Are there men clapping?” The clapping continued and she quipped, “I really want to know.”

What came to mind was a story I’d heard from Louis L'Amour’s daughter, whom I worked with for a time. This was a man who wrote and published 89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction). His daughter’s memories of him were of a man always working. The images she relayed were of him at his typewriter, never distracted, always deep in his work. He was a present dad when he wasn’t working (which wasn’t often), but he was not to be interrupted at his desk—and he wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.  

I thought about him last night when Julie pondered whether the men in the audience related to being able to access themselves in the company of the needs of others. In my book, Write On, Sisters!, I wrote about conditioning as a powerful force in the lives of women writers. We are conditioned to care for others. We are conditioned to put the needs of others before our own. We are conditioned to manage the home front, even if we work (the famous double-bind). Conditioning becomes expectations which become solidified roles.

Last night was a reminder of the ways in which that force of conditioning pulses, but also how we can overcome it when we assert our needs. Julie finally said her dad: I can’t write at home. She finally came to terms with the reality that she could not access herself in the company of the needs of others. She’d long been beating herself up for this even as she took the steps to allow herself to get away to write.  I probably brought myself close to an ulcer with my first book, writing when my son was a baby, always feeling like I should be anywhere else but working on my book. Only in hindsight am I so much gentler on myself. This is where time is a blessing, and why to march forward with our creative pursuits, no matter how incremental, and even when it’s hard.

I love to ask writers about how they make time to write, especially if you’re a person who suffers from BSOS, especially if you’re a person who struggles to access yourself, especially if you’ve ever felt selfish or guilty for prioritizing your writing. What strategies or pep talks or belief systems work or have worked for you? I hope you’ll share.