Prams, Hallways, and Renewal Emails

"Akela, we'll do our best!"

This is not going to become a Substack about the many realisations that come with parenthood.

Because, listen. It's unlikely I have anything new or stupendously insightful to tell you; the idea of the (in)famous pram in the hall is wrong or it is right or it's both and neither... The thing we can all agree on is that you're likely to trip on it, no matter your opinion on its relationship with good art.

I got an email alert from the screenwriting software I use to write. Just a friendly reminder, and that reminder was: we're going to take some money from your account in a week to renew your subscription, unless you explicitly stop us from doing that.

So I read that email and just sat there, nap-trapped by the occupant of my pram in the hall (we have two prams in the hall, actually: the sturdy Mockingbird - what a name for this time of life! - and the zippy little Yoyo), and thought about the open projects I have on the scriptwriting program on my laptop. And I asked myself the last time I had opened that laptop to do anything except life admin like taxes or buying plane tickets or to watch snatches of a tv show on Hulu (The Bear, most recently). I asked myself the last time I'd opened the laptop specifically to make use of the scriptwriting program. It must have been when I was still pregnant... but the memory was fuzzy. Which tells the truest story, no? I asked myself the last time my allotted non-day job writing day had been given over to the task. The answers to all these questions just made me instantly tired and a little ashamed (logical or no, this is where we are!).

Sometimes, half-jokingly, I describe the baby as "the best paragraph I ever wrote" and roll my eyes. To myself and to the other person. I roll them to say: I know it's a lofty little line, but I sort of mean it? But also, ew, what a thing to say. And every time I say it , I think, when last did you type out an original paragraph? [I think it was the last time I wrote this newsletter. Don't you feel special!]

I don't know how other writers cope with the fallow periods in the life cycle. Personally, there are days where the lack of new words in a certain form make me feel itchy and sad. Other days where pragmatism takes me by the throat and asks me in a tight voice to point to the slack in my life that would be allow for any kind of writing. And then other days where I literally do not think of myself and art in the same Venn diagram. Life's rich tapestry and all that.

Anyway. I called my sister. Because like that one Tiktok said, without a big sister, “how do you even know what to do?” And before I even got all my words out, she said, firmly, Renew it. And then she expanded on her answer.

She reminded me that these years—the years in which I am raising this baby—coincide with the years in which many women enjoy a richness in creative thought and output. That the pram in the hall can be limiting… but only for a time! And then one day I will descend the stairs and the pram will simply have disappeared. Or perhaps gone into storage. Or maybe it's shrouded under a tarp. Whatever the reason, the pram would not trip me up, or hit me in the hip as I walk past.

Her argument boiled down to: you have to make room for art, even when it feels like you have no time, and some days half the battle of art-making is having the right tools for when the time presents itself. Make the investment. And then, wherever you can, apply yourself.

So that's what I'm doing.

I let the deadline to stop payment pass. The renewal email came through, thanking me for my continued patronage. I have another year of access to these specialized writing tools. I hope to make time, to write more paragraphs, more dialogue, something approaching art. But first, I’m going to enjoy this napping baby, and let this episode of The Bear come to an end.