"don't wait for the time to show up; demand it"
a good creatures interview with novelist Kate Brody, on selling her debut while in labor (!) and not being precious about your writing conditions
Hello there! This is a good creatures interview, a series that explores the intersection of caregiving and creative practice. I’m so excited to showcase people doing lots of kinds of caregiving—people caring for kids or pets or other family members and/or caring for space through gardening or community work or activism—and lots of kinds of creative work.
If you know (or are!) a good creature whose work we should feature, send me an email—you can just reply to this newsletter.
🎉a little reminder before we get to today’s main event: you’ve got invitations to two upcoming zoom parties to help you get inspired and organized in your writing life in 2024! I’ve love for you to join us. 🎉
✨ On Sunday, January 7th at 4pm eastern via zoom, I’ll be hosting the second annual Write More vision board party! I’m a very practical, goals-oriented person—but in the last couple of years, I’ve gotten really into the fun (and, dare I say, magic?) of making a vision board for the beginning of each new year. I wrote about vision boards last year here and here, if you need a little nudge. To join us, register at this link. (And if you can’t make that time, I’ll share a recording a few days after the party.)
🗒 And then, on Tuesday January 9th at 7.30pm eastern via zoom, I’m pairing up with planner extraordinaire and Friend of the Newsletter Erin Flanagan for a January Goal Setting Meeting, hosted by the Midwest Mystery Writers Association. If you had so much fun at our fall planning party and want more of that nerdy joy in your life for the new year, I’d love for you to join us. And if you missed us in the fall, you can remedy that and get your writing life started with stickers and/or spreadsheets in the new year! You can register for that event here.
Today’s interview is with Kate Brody, whose debut novel Rabbit Hole I was so lucky to get to read early and which you can now read, too! (It was listed in the “page-turners with good prose” section of this year’s gift guide, alongside Katie Gutierrez and Erin Flanagan.) It’s the rare book that’s compelling at both a plot and sentence level. It follows Teddy, whose older sister Angie disappeared ten years before, as her father’s suicide throws her into the murky world of online conspiracy theories surrounding her sister’s mysterious disappearance.
I’m excited to share Kate’s interview because she’s so clear-eyed and unsentimental about both parenting and writing and how to get it all done. It’s just the inspirational kick in the pants I think a lot of us could use as we start a new year.
Who do you care for?
I care for my two kids—Brody, age 4, and Henry, age 1. (And my 12-year-old dog, Frankie.)
What kind of creative work do you do?
I am a debut novelist and author of the brand new literary thriller Rabbit Hole, out now from Soho Crime.
What is difficult about being creative and a caregiver?
Creative work and caregiving are both incredibly time-intensive, and there are only so many hours in the day. Sometimes I imagine a different life, where I am a solitary artist, who has all day to focus on her projects. And sometimes, I imagine a life where I am a first and foremost a parent. Someone who is not permanently half-elsewhere, working out knotty character problems while her kids are talking. But I want both, so I end up doing a slightly subpar job at both.
I actually sold Rabbit Hole in the maternity ward. It was a particularly grueling day (I had gone into labor early thanks to a bout of Norovirus I contracted from my eldest), and the only thing that pulled me out of my despair in the hospital was word from my agent that we had gotten two offers on the book. During the first weeks of my son’s life, I revised furiously to meet editorial demands, but my brain was still fuzzy and sluggish. I felt guilty for not giving Henry my full attention, and I also felt frustrated with my own sloppy and slow work. But the deadline came, and the book went off to copy edits. That’s pretty much how everything goes.
Is there someone who inspires you that both fosters a creative practice and is a care-giver? What do you do to help activate the switch (if it is a switch) between creative-brain and care-giving brain? (Is it possible to switch?)
My husband, Chris, is also a writer. We met in an undergrad fiction workshop, a decade ago. He is an amazing dad, and right now, as I gear up for pub day, he’s doing the lion’s share of the caregiving. We’re always engaged in a running dialogue about our work and about art in general. He really gets it. Being with him means that I don’t have to activate the switch between caregiving-brain and creative-brain. We can change gears mid-sentence if we have to. Had I ended up with someone else, I think I might have given up writing or come to feel that it was a hobby after my first manuscript “failed.” But Chris and I are both invested in each other’s successes. We don’t let the other give up that easy.
What’s changed about your process? About your medium or genre?
It used to be that I worried about how much I was writing. Was it enough? Was I doing it every day? That kind of thing. Now, I don’t worry about that. The older I get and the more limited my time becomes, I find that it’s the only think I want to do. That has been a very pleasant revelation. If I get a free hour, I might force myself to work out, but I never have to force myself to write.
On the other hand, these days I find myself thinking ahead to the commercial viability of a project while I’m working on it. I wish that weren’t the case. If I didn’t have all these dependents, maybe I would allow myself to waste more time. I think it’s creatively healthy to waste time, but it’s not a luxury I feel I have at the moment.
What advice would you give someone who has a creative practice and is embarking on becoming a caregiver?
Push through. Be tough. Don’t get precious about your writing conditions. One advantage of having kids relatively young and broke and early in my career was that I didn’t have many years to get set in my ways. Writing under duress is all I’ve ever known. I just make it work.
What advice would you give someone who is a caregiver that wants to start a creative practice?
You can do it. It won’t be easy, but you’re probably used to not easy. Don’t wait for the time to show up; demand it. Lean hard on your partner, if you have one. Harder than you might want to. You’ll have to make some sacrifices, including your pride. Writing might be the only thing you do for you. It might have to take the place of exercise or your date night. But it’ll be worth it.
Kate Brody is a novelist, living in LA. She is a graduate of NYU’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Electric Lit, CrimeReads, Literary Hub, The Literary Review, Noema, and other magazines. Her debut novel, Rabbit Hole, which Kirkus called “a timely rumination on internet obsession, true crime, and paranoia,” is out now from Soho Crime.
You can find Kate on twitter and instagram at @katebrodyauthor, and you can read more at her website. She’s got a bunch of great upcoming book launch events in Connecticut, New York, LA, DC, and more, and you can get all the info about those here.
Write More, Be Less Careful is a newsletter about why writing is hard & how to do it anyway. You can find my books here and read other recent writing here.
If Write More has helped you in your creative life, I’d love it if you would share it with a friend.
Another great interview! Thanks, Nancy and thanks Kate and congrats on your debut!
Yes! Once I had kids it became increasingly clear that letting go of preciousness around writing was really the only way to go. I write in parking lots, during piano lessons, in the dentist waiting room, whatever!