I promised you lots of guest entries by writers that I like and admire. Meet Nuala Ní Chonchúir, an Irish writer who blogs under the name
Women Rule Writer. She has published two story collections,
The Wind Across the Grass and
To the World of Men, Welcome. She is also an established poet with two critically acclaimed anthologies to her name. She has represented Ireland at the Tokyo International Poetry Festival(!) She has also won several awards for her writing, including the Cuirt New Writing Prize, RTE radio’s Francis MacManus Award, the Jonathan Swift Award and the Cecil Day Lewis Award. Her new book,
Nude, is out in September from Salt Publishing.
I met Nuala first online before I met her in Galway, earlier this year, and to my delight found that I liked her in the flesh as much as in the word. Nuala, already a mother of two boys, recently welcomed baby Juno to the family and, here, taking inspiration from a quotation by Cyril Connolly, she reflects on writing and being a mother.
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"There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall."
Cyril Connolly 1938
I had decided to write about how Connolly’s famous pram in the hall was in fact no barrier to creative activity – in my case, writing – but, guess what? I have found it very hard to grab half an hour away from my new baby in order to write down my thoughts...
OK, she’s only five weeks old, so I shouldn’t be trying to run before I can walk, but I had absolutely forgotten how little a mother can achieve with a brand new baby in the house. My life now consists of breastfeeding, sleeping, school runs, food-on-the-fly, and endless rounds of ‘Cash in the Attic’ and ‘Bargain Hunt’ on the TV. I can’t even manage to read a book, which is unheard of for me. But, I’m keeping my daughter alive with my breast milk and that – not writing – is the most important thing right at this moment.
However, I still don’t think that the pram in the hall is a barrier to writing. Especially not for men. I couldn’t help being irritated by
Roger McGough in a recent Sunday Times interview in which he spoke of his worry that the new pram in his hall, when he was in his fifties, would have “an adverse affect” on his writing. He said that it didn’t – “it actually worked in the opposite way” – but I can’t help thinking that that was because Mrs McGough was the one pushing the pram, rather than Roger himself.
It is still the woman in most households, after all, who takes on the childcare duties. As a full-time writer I work from home, so it’s natural that the duties fall to me. Also, I want to breastfeed my daughter so I have to be available for her. It doesn’t mean, though, that I have suppressed my personality and am suddenly a serene and accepting Earth Mother, slave-to-baby type. I was more like that 15 years ago when my first son was born. Now, at nearly 40, I want to be cleverer about how Baby fits into our lives and that means I must create time to write.
After my second son was born I wrote a novel (unpublished, as yet); my first poetry collection was published, and I completed my first short fiction collection. Ideas and publication flowed to and around me. Since then, my productivity has slowed in general but I don’t fear that the pram in the hall and its tiny occupant will be any barrier to my creativity. It’s just a matter of patience; in time both Baby and I will find ways to work around each other.
Welsh writer Rachel Trezise wrote on her blog in 2007 about her worry that a child wouldn’t fit into her busy writing life. “Where would a baby go?” was her plaintive cry and she listed her endless writing duties to illustrate the point. She also quoted from Clare Potter’s poem ‘A Pram in the Hall’:
‘I have not stroked my belly
imagined you in sun slats
kicking in my
extended arms
I’ve worried where I’ll put you when I write
I can’t clear
space for your arrival
imagine that smell they talk of
the joy I’m
supposed to feel
I can’t see your little feet
the, apparently, button nose, only blank panicky pages’.
When you are creative by nature nothing stands in the way of that – not time issues, not full-time work and not babies or bigger kids. Creativity is a compulsion, as integral to who you are as your eye colour. As a writer, I am always writing even if I haven’t got a pen or laptop to hand. There just isn’t any other way for me to be.
Yes, with a new baby, time becomes an issue. Yes, babies are notoriously demanding and don’t leave you with arms or brain-space enough for much. But, with tenacity and a bit of juggling, it is possible to be creative while the pram sits in the hall. And anyway, babies have a lovely habit of growing up and gaining independence, leaving you freer than you might want to be to create to your heart’s desire.
I’ll wrap up with a quote from one of my very favourite writers and one of my favourite Irish women, Anne Enright.
She was writing in The Guardian about the historical rejection of the notion of having a family by writers:
“
When I had children, I was delighted to find that procreation posed no fundamental or necessary threat to the business of creation. There is always the problem of time...but I have written more since becoming a mother, not less. This is a mark of a wonderful social moment – I don’t think such productivity would have been possible for a woman 20 years ago. It also came as a complete surprise.”
Long may mother-writers be surprised by their output and by their increased, not straitened, creativity. With patience, I know I’ll get there soon too
