Becoming A Dad Made Me A Better Writer
Becoming A Dad Made Me A Better Writer
Before my son was born, writing ruled my world. I thought of myself, first and foremost, as a writer. I spent my days thinking about my writing, the writing of others I was jealous of, my plan to achieve “success” and publish a book to critical acclaim in my 20s, and why that plan was bombing.
I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I used my free time to analyze how many followers I had, whether the “right” people followed me, and if not, why not. On the page, the novel I had labored over for a decade, floundered.
As my son’s birth neared and my wife’s belly grew and the pandemic took over the world, I changed course yet again because I realized that the whole book needed to be imploded. I had the desire to take things in a new direction that felt a bit subversive and scary. Little by little commentary on cancel culture, virtue signaling, and the shallowness of our culture’s diversity obsession began to creep into the manuscript. But I was afraid. I fought them back. I pulled my punches.
I worried how the book I really wanted to write would be received. I worried about my followers on Twitter and the ones I didn’t have, and what all those people would think. I worried about my “brand.” I worried about getting dun, dun, dunnnn, canceled.
I was paralyzed because I allowed myself to be paralyzed. Because the idea of becoming a celebrated writer among the right crowd was the foundation of my entire identity as a person.
That all changed in July of 2020, when my son was born.
I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I’ve always wanted to be a good dad, which to me simply means being present. That in itself is a huge improvement over the father I had.
But despite this goal, it was never above my bigger goal of being a writer. That was always at the top of the totem pole. So much so that before my son was born, I agonized over how being a dad might affect my writing. Would I still be able to get my hours in? Would the responsibilities only further delay my “success” timeline? Would I ever publish a book?
Surprisingly, all of these concerns basically vanished almost as soon as I held my son in my arms.
Something about those early days—seeing him emerge into the world, seeing how much he needed my wife and I, and, ultimately, realizing that I was charged with keeping him alive and teaching him how to be a person, and hopefully, a good person—re-ordered the list of priorities in my life.
Being a writer, publishing according to my timeline, impressing the people I hoped to impress, became secondary to making sure I was being a good dad, and being a supportive husband to my wife who barely slept and constantly had this little human attached to her boobs.
I still got my writing in when I could. I woke up early in the morning. I ran off to coffee shops during naps. But many days the writing simply couldn’t happen. Many days, instead of getting in the hour of writing I’d planned for, I had to settle for 10 minutes.
Before becoming a parent, these adjustments sent me off the rails. Any little change in my schedule, any little thing that popped up and altered my writing plan for the day sent me into stupors that took me a whole day to recover from. It is ironic that I reacted this way because I had all the time in the world and I often wasted it worrying about dumb shit.
But I had the time to waste. I knew that even if I blew my hour or two of writing time by scrolling on Twitter or worrying about my position in the theoretical rat race of the literary scene, I could always get it back somewhere else.
The birth of my son made me realize, quickly, that I could no longer be so careless with my time. I was forced to accept a large degree of unpredictability because my time no longer hinged on me and my decisions, it hinged on a little human who I had to reorient my life and priorities around.
I have two beautiful, healthy children now. These days, writing happens in the 30 to 45 minute increments I can steal five days a week—on a good week. Which means a week when one of my kids isn’t sick or my son doesn’t have the day off from daycare, and I physically have the energy to rise at 5 a.m. and get my work in.
In those small, sleepy, increments of time, however, I’m far more focused and efficient than I ever was when I had hours of a day at my disposal.
I don’t sit around and ponder pointless things like the trajectory of my career or my “brand.” I focus on the little clock on the bottom right hand side of my screen, or, the baby monitors sitting next to my computer. I write like I might not get the time back for the rest of the week because, usually, I don’t.
This helps. A lot.
I ignore the little voice in my head that says things, like, “Well, do you really want to write that? Are you sure? Yeah, but what about…” I don’t have time for his ass. I just go. Write and write and try not to look up. This helps me produce pages fast. But that is just one part of the equation.
Because I have less time, and because my head is filled with different questions these days—Am I doing this parenting right? Is this thing I did or didn’t do going to set my kids up for failure?—I no longer have the same concerns about my writing that I previously had.
It isn’t just that those concerns have migrated to my job as a parent, but also that my totem pole has been fundamentally re-ordered. My writing no longer lives about everything else. The fact is: I care way more about being a good, present dad than I do about being a bestselling novelist. Don’t get me wrong, being a bestselling novelist would still be really cool and I’ll do my part to try and make it happen.
But if my first book flops next year, I’ll be aight. If no one reviews it, or if everyone pans it, it won’t kill my self worth because my self worth is no longer tied up in my writing or in being a writer.
And man, that is so liberating!
In fact, once this internal rearrangement happened (thanks to my children), my fiction took on a new life. For the first time in a long time, I feel like that kid at Cornell again, who just started messing around with fiction on a whim because he’d read some Junot Diaz, Ernesto Quiñonez, and Piri Thomas and thought, well, fuck it, I might as well write about my neighborhood, too.
Back then, my writing had raw energy to it. I didn’t think about who would read it or what they would say. I wrote for myself. I wrote to mess around and create something cool. It was baffling to me that this writing went on to win awards at my school, and that people came to expect more of it. And everything went downhill once I began to place expectations on my writing, too; once I bought into the hype.
For years before my kids came around, I wrote while looking over my shoulder. I wrote while listening to the little voice in my head. For years, I wished I could just tap back into that early period of innocence, when I would just let shit fly and have fun. The truth is, before my kids were born, it had been quite a while since I’d had any fun while writing.
That has changed. The pressure on my writing and my writing “career” is very low now. A bestselling book is simply less significant than making sure I have two breathing, healthy children. Having the “right” people follow me on Twitter is way less important than making sure the little people right in front of me learn the right things when they soak in my every word and move.
When I sit down to write for my little increments, I write freely. As a result, my novel completely transformed between 2020 and 2022 when it eventually sold.
My protagonist became the shitty, narcissistic, and opportunistic person he was always meant to be. The satire I had been subtly trying to weave into the book all along, ever so carefully so that no one would get offended, blossomed. The scenes felt fresh. I laughed while writing. I had fun again.
I think the book sold because I stopped caring if it would sell. When it went out on submission, I hoped for the best but secretly made plans to publish it on my own if no one bit. When the first editor did bite, I was excited. But I was also at the library with my son, trying to get him to stop rolling around on the floor and knocking everything down. I quickly scanned the email, but, mostly, I kept looking over at him. To make sure he was alive, to make sure he wasn’t hurting himself.
Those glances, that necessity to look away from the writing life, to focus on something else, has been a game changer for me.
So what am I saying to aspiring writers out there? Have kids? No, not exactly.
Bringing children into the world is a momentous decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I would also be remiss if I did not state that for women things are, often, very, very different than they are for men. For as much as I help my wife, the fact of the matter is that by sheer physical necessity (breast milk) she spends more time with our babies when they’re young, and gets up more often, and gets less sleep, and has less of an ability to wake up at 5 a.m. and tinker on her passion.
So, no, I’m not saying go knock someone up, or get knocked up, and boom you’ll be a better writer. What I am saying is that if you want to be a writer, and enjoy your writing and the writing process, perhaps don’t make it your everything.
Don’t let that goal and desire define you. Have other things you are passionate about, other hobbies. Get in touch with God and find your meaning there—if that’s something you’re interested in. Get obsessed with a sports team, or with Jiu-jitsu or with running marathons. Devote yourself to noble causes you feel passionately about. Find something to put above writing on the totem pole.
Whatever you choose, I believe, from experience, that it will be better than focusing only on becoming a writer, on getting an agent, on getting published, and having everything go according to your “plan.”
You will still pursue those goals you have for yourself, and you should, but there’s a good chance that if you reorder your internal priorities, you’ll pursue them in a way that will feel less momentous all the time. You might enjoy the ride a bit more. You might have more fun on the page. And as a result, I’d bet money that whatever you do produce might be more meaningful and enjoyable for you and your future readers.
Thanks for reading.
Peace,
Andrew
Recommendations
Marie Kondo, who once preached only about tidying up, had three kids and is now embracing a bit of messiness. Love to see it.
My sophomore novel will deal with parenthood in some way, so I’m trying to read up on novels that center the experience as much as possible. I just finished Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, and it was excellent. I highly recommend it to parents and non-parents alike.
I’m always on the hunt for good literary podcasts and writer interviews. Dedicated with Doug Brunt is a great one and recently had the novelist Marlon James on. The conversation is worth a listen.
Speaking of podcasts, a couple very smart people I knew back at Cornell—and who are now accomplished writers and academics—launched a new one: Tiny Futures. I listened to the first episode, which dissected ChatGPT, and Spare by Prince Harry and what the book and its hype means for this cultural moment. Check it out!
50 Cent’s debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ turned 20 years old this month. That made me feel very old. But it also made me want to revisit the album. Conclusion: It still holds up!
Leigh Stein, author of the excellent novel Self Care and avid TikTok user, wrote a great piece on BookTok for LitHub. It calls out the literary world for pretending it is above TikTok, when, in fact, it seems like it is actually useful for finding readers. Suffice to say, the essay and Leigh’s general passion about TikTok convinced me to start my own account. So, find me on TikTok, people.