[image error]It’s weird, this social isolation business, because I’ve had more social interaction in the last couple of weeks than I’ve had all year. Suddenly writing from home has never been so busy.

I’m reminded of the Cyril Connolly quote: “There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.” I hate this quote, firstly because it’s written by a man and even in this day and age I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of men I know who have primary responsibility for their children. [If in doubt, the person who has primary responsibility is the person to whom the question, ‘Where’s my underpants/hairbrush/book bag…?‘ is always addressed.]  And secondly, because the use of the word ‘good’ lends it a judgemental tone. Yes, mothers can make art, it seems to say, but it won’t be worthwhile.

This is how we keep women down. We burden them with primary responsibility for the home and family and then dismiss their art as domestic and trivial.

My own experiences are at odds with Mr Connolly’s quote. I wrote my first novel when my children were one and two years old.  I only finished that novel because I had children. Because they’d taught me that life was now, not some distant point in the future. Because having children made me, for the first time in my life, want to try my best. Because they’d taught me to live in the present, to grab my moments and to not worry about the what ifs…

Of course, my children no longer require prams. They not only sleep through the night, but also most of the day. They do have an alarming tendency to throw back a door and announce they’re starving – somedays I feel like I’m running a 24-hour room service in a medium-sized hotel – but generally speaking, they’re quite low-maintenance.

But. There is still a but. Before isolation I’d see them off to school, go for a run and then settle myself at my desk.  I could mentally parcel my entire family up and stick them in a box marked, ‘Not My Responsibility Till 3pm’ and that left my head free for writing. These days its harder to get the mental space.

I recently watched Roald Dahl settle himself into his writing day and it occurred to me that that’s what I need. Not so much a shed at the bottom of the orchard (although that would be nice, obvs.) but a ritual. A ritual that brings me to my writing world and away from the world of lost property and room service.

Now, I just need to devise one.