by Bunny McFadden
Bunny McFadden makes her Asimov’s debut in our [March/April issue, on sale now!] with her short story “Peck.” Here she discusses some of the unique challenges of being both a mother and a writer
I oscillate between creation and consumption. I’ll go through phases where I am insatiably hungry for books, movies, television shows; I devour science fiction like a true bookworm and I binge limited series with the best of ‘em, cozy in my floral flannel sheets with my chin resting on my pillow.
And then I’ll enter a period where I create and discard projects like I’m shaking a bag of seeds in a freshly-tilled field. I form and subsequently abandon novels with intricate plots that lay about my Google Drive like half-formed chrysalides. I pull out all my sewing patterns and match them to old thrifted curtains and kids’ bedsheets and fun yardage. I tab every tempting recipe in an obscure cookbook and fill the cupboard with the ingredients required to become an entirely different person, one who is familiar with cassava flour and anise.
As a mother, I have discovered myself in these twin cycles. During pregnancy, the venn diagram of creation and consumption expands, each swallowing the other to form a big circle. You eat constantly but your blood feels drained of nutrients. Your hair grows faster until it chokes you. Then when the baby is born, you must sustain it. Create and consume, feed and drink in the smells of the thing. This is much like writing. I pull words from the thesaurus or word association network and drop them like nuts into a pouch. I drift through passages of reference books, sometimes annotating four or five at a time simultaneously. My mind feels loose and distant but also omnipresent, like a mother who isn’t paying any attention but whose presence is essential for play.
A mother is one of the few professionals who is reminded of the brevity of time constantly. During her shift, she’s likely to hear the public weigh in at least once about how dedicated she must be to creation, if not verbally then through subconscious reinforcement. There’s oblique messaging like the lack of paid parental leave that drives the plot of a familiar sitcom; even during the commercial break a mother sees herself pantomimed as a busy chef / business lady saved by the grace of Prego or Ragu. Thus, finding time to write becomes a game.
I drift through passages of reference books, sometimes annotating four or five at a time simultaneously. My mind feels loose and distant but also omnipresent, like a mother who isn’t paying any attention but whose presence is essential for play.
I wish I could say that finding time to write as a mother is as easy as asking your community for support, capitalizing on naps and early bedtimes, taking turns supervising playgroups. In reality, the tips I’ve gained would grant me gasps from even the chillest California mom-who-has-it-all. You know how you give a dog a thinking toy or puzzle covered in peanut butter and they wear themselves out trying to lick it out of every corner? Turns out that works on kids, too. And coffee is another thing that everyone jokes about, but I don’t think I can get out of bed without it, let alone write. One tip you might find useful if you’re trying to balance it all: Destruction is the most fun a kid can have. Give them some cardboard recycling to break down, or hand them some old paperwork and some crayons. If you have a stuffed animal who is falling apart at the seams, even better.
Writing itself ebbs and flows between inking and blotting out, cooking something up and devouring it. Remember that if you’re in despair over the shock of having tiny humans rely on you, wondering if you’ll ever have uninterrupted writing time again, these things come and go. One day your kids will be old enough to swordfight unattended, eat cherry tomatoes and grapes with wild abandon, and listen to your rewrites.
From Earth to the Stars 