Podcast: Finding Time and Energy to Create While Parenting with Creativity Coach Susie Meserve
hosted by Sue Campbell
Can you really write a book while raising kids? Creativity coach Susie Meserve says yes — but not in the way you think. In this episode, Sue sits down with Susie to talk about what actually gets in the way of creative moms (hint: it's not just time), why having children made both of them more prolific, and the guilt spiral that so many artist moms never talk about out loud. Plus: the small mindset shift that turns 20 stolen minutes into a legitimate writing practice. If you're a caregiver who's told yourself "I'll get back to my writing when things slow down" — this one's for you.
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transcript
Anne Hawley: Writers, are you struggling to balance being a mom or a caregiver with your desire to create or maintain your writing practice? Then this one's for you. Hello and welcome to the Write Anyway podcast from pages and platforms in the happily Ever Author Club. In today's episode, Sue talks with creativity coach Suzy Erv about the changing goals and challenges of creating while parenting.
Let's listen in.
Sue Campbell: Hello, Susie, welcome to the Write Anyway podcast, I'm so delighted to have you here today.
Susie Meserve: Hi, Sue. Thank you. It's great to be here.
Sue Campbell: So for our listeners and watchers, Susie and I were both presenters at the San Francisco Writers Conference in February, and we're recording this right now on March 10th, and we ended up just sitting next to each other on a stage with like 30 other people during this flash round of questions and answers.
In the three seconds we had to introduce to each other, Susie told me that she is a writing coach who works with a specialty on like helping moms write their books. So tell us a little bit about your work and who you like to help and why did you decide to focus on this.
Susie Meserve: Well, I should say, first of all, I call myself a creativity coach.
And I work with writer moms, but also artist moms. So, you know, anybody who's sort of in the, in creative practice, because I see a lot of overlap. I mean, obviously writing is its own thing, but I do see a lot of overlap in creative practice with other arts fields.
I've been a writing teacher and a writer myself for my entire adult life. And a couple years ago I've been working at an art school for the most part with undergrads. And a couple years ago I realized that what really kind of thrilled me was not thesis statements and, you know, paragraphing, but helping young artists kind of connect with their creative process and like some of the mindset work that needs to happen to build an entire life of creativity with all of its ups and downs.
Like knowing that it's not gonna go how you thought it would for lots of reasons, that you have to be perseverant, et cetera. So I did a coaching program. When I left the coaching program, I was like, well, I, you know, I might work with a different population. And then I was like, no, I wanna work with creative people.
And then it occurred to me about a year into that, that my life as a writer and as a creative person was so changed by having children and that motherhood has just been this like endless source of material for me. And so I thought, what am I doing? I need to start coaching, you know, working with moms.
So that's what I do as a coach. I also lead writing workshops and classes and things for everybody because I just, I can't give up my, like, you know, older men retirees, like I just love working with them too. But one-to-one, and you know, most of my practices is with creative moms.
Sue Campbell: Beautiful. I love that.
And so we wanna have a conversation today, everyone listening, that are for the caregivers out there. So moms, yes, definitely. That's kind of the focus. And we have a special set of circumstances. I feel like mom space but if you are caregiving, if you are a dad, if you are someone who is taking care of a child, taking care of a grownup, taking care of a parent, any of those things,
Susie Meserve: yeah.
Sue Campbell: These are all, you know, the discussion should help you figure out how. Yeah. Thanks for
Susie Meserve: naming that. I agree. Totally agree.
Sue Campbell: So. Tell me a little bit about your just experience as a mom who was really important to maintain your creativity.
Susie Meserve: I mean, I guess I feel like I can't talk about this with, without telling you a little bit about my own path to motherhood.
Mm-hmm. So maybe I'll just take a couple minutes there. So I had a child when I was 35 and, you know, fairly quote, normally I'm married to a man and you know, we had a baby. And when he was two I decided that I wanted to have another child, and it turned out that like my eggs had gone out to pasture and so I had something of an epic fertility journey and it took me five and a half years to get pregnant again.
So my kids are seven years apart. And I had a late baby. I'm sort of the oldest mom at the elementary school at this point. And, in that path, in the, on that journey, I was like kind of, I was trying to write a memoir and I was kind of stalled out because I was putting so much energy into having another baby.
It was hard to have much leftover. And so somewhere along there I started writing essays about my own infertility and I was probably shouldn't have been surprised, but I was surprised to find that there was this like incredible audience for this, that like people really wanted to hear about my troubles in having a baby.
That it was like really relatable. It was kind of good fodder for personal essays. So I published a bunch of personal essays about that, and then I finally had this delightful weird child who I now have, who's now nine and, what was really interesting was that after I gave birth to him, like about a year later, I just all of a sudden had this like creative explosion and I'm also a songwriter or I became a songwriter, I should say.
I've always been a singer and a guitar player, and all of a sudden I was like writing songs and playing with my band and we started getting gigs and my poetry collection finally got published and I got a writing grant and all of this was happening when he was like two and three, and so. I don't know what happened there.
I just know that something about motherhood like really inspired me and inspired this creative explosion within me. And so that was just so joyful and amazing. And then of course, there's all the logistics of like trying to actually write when you have two kids, which, you know, is a journey and a challenge.
And so that's sort of a different piece of it, but I just know that for me, like my creativity really changed when I had kids and it was. It just felt more vital, more important more pressed for time and therefore like more urgent somehow.
Sue Campbell: Yeah, I had much of the same feeling. I was a absolute master procrastinator, like my inner saboteur was absolutely in charge.
I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was six or seven.
Susie Meserve: Yeah.
Sue Campbell: But I did not get my act together and make it an important part of my life until after I had my first kid. Oh,
Susie Meserve: wow.
Sue Campbell: Because I was like, oh. If I wanna prove to this child that they can do whatever they wanna do, then I have to model that.
Susie Meserve: Yeah, that's beautiful.
Sue Campbell: And that, again, there were so many time constraints. I was working full-time at a real job at the time. Right. Not like being an entrepreneur and doing your own thing, that I was, you know, working for a local government as a business systems analyst. And I started like freelance writing on the side.
And actually one of my first journalism type gigs was for a parenting magazine.
Susie Meserve: Oh, wow.
Sue Campbell: Right. And it's so poignant, right? It's the such a huge life transition that it feels like it just makes sense to talk about it and process it creatively, whether you're writing or whether you're songwriting or any of those things.
Susie Meserve: Yeah.
Sue Campbell: So I just wanna encourage the moms out there. Yes. It is a totally overwhelming, chaotic, consuming time. And yes, if you're feeling that pull to your creativity, it can also be done and is worthwhile to do it.
Susie Meserve: Yes. Yeah. And it might, it's gonna be different than it was before.
Sue Campbell: Yes.
Susie Meserve: And different is not always worse, right?
Like it's, you know, there's, yeah. It's gonna, it's gonna look different, but you might be surprised by how much you can get done. You know?
Sue Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. So talk a little bit about like, I think the first thing everybody. Thinks about is, well, I don't have the time.
Susie Meserve: Yeah,
Sue Campbell: right. That's the first quick hit is like, I am knee deep in, you know, diapers and school trips and all that stuff.
I don't have the time. Yeah. So how do you help clients solve first for that most obvious question about time?
Susie Meserve: Yeah. Yeah. That's like the most practical one. And you know, people approach this in really different ways. I mean, my personal method is I have been getting up an hour earlier than the rest of my family for the last like, probably 10 years.
Although lately that's been a little trickier and I have to figure that out. Some moms, you know, carve out time on the weekends or take nights, but you basically, you have to make some shift in order to create a little pocket of time. And I really do mean a little pocket.
So, like you said about being a master procrastinator, I mean, in my twenties I would just never write and then I would write all day, one day. Mm-hmm. And that kind of process is kind of off limits when you have children, I think for most people.
But what we don't know or what we don't realize ahead of time is that you can write in these tiny little chunks of time. Like for my money, it's better to spend 20 minutes a day, but to do that five or six days a week than it is to just keep putting it off.
And I really do believe that everybody can find 20 minutes. I was on a panel at the San Francisco Writers Conference with a dad who has a, an adult highly special needs child. Mm-hmm. And they just walk all day long when he's not teaching, they just take these long walks. And he was talking about, you know, he writes on his phone, he's just like jotting notes, and then when he gets a little pocket of time after his kid goes to bed, he then sits down for an hour and like puts it all together.
Yeah. So, you know. I'm just a big believer that you have to figure out what works for you. And it might be writing in the car while the kids are gymnastics. It might be, you know. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've done some of these things too.
Sue Campbell: Yeah. That was my, that was gonna be my example is like I send my kid up for a weekend class and you know, she would go in on the trapeze and I'd be in the car with my laptop.
Susie Meserve: Yeah.
Sue Campbell: Like banging out some work.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. Banging it out. Yep. Yep. Yeah, so that's the first piece I think is just figuring that out. And obviously if you're working like a very intense job and you know you also have kids and you know, it's hard. It's gonna be hard. I'm not gonna lie and say like, oh, you'll just find that.
But I do believe if you can start with 15 or 20 minutes, that can stretch a little bit, you know, as you go. Yeah. Yeah.
Sue Campbell: I also encourage people like, look for the time that does align with when you have some energy, right? Yes. So for some people you and I are morning people clearly. Yeah. Like I like to wake up and do it.
One of the first things that I do.
Susie Meserve: Yeah.
Sue Campbell: And then that gives me actually a little energy boost for the rest of the day 'cause I've already done something that really refills my cup.
Susie Meserve: Oh yeah.
Sue Campbell: Replenishes me. That's
Susie Meserve: a great point.
Sue Campbell: Some people are night owls, right? Yeah. Like some neurodivergent folks are really night owls and so they need to do that, you know, later on in the day.
But find the pockets of time that also ideally align with when you have some energy. Yeah. 'cause if you put it off all day or you all the other draining things, it's, you're not gonna do it.
Susie Meserve: It's gone. Yeah, I gimme an example this morning. I didn't sleep well last night and I turned off the alarm and thought, oh, I'll just write later.
And then, you know, my teenager has a late class and needed my help and my little guy was not at, you know, I didn't write Today, it's probably not happening because I didn't get it done during my ideal window.
Sue Campbell: And being okay. Right. I think a lot of times we bring sort of the perfectionistic thinking that we had before kids and try to like, well, if you can't sit down for two hours and have complete, you know, mental buffer around you, then you shouldn't do it at all.
And I, that is just absolute patriarchal crap.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. It's like you have to be a little bit Buddhist like what is the thing about like it's never too late to start again. It's never too late. You know, so if don't do it today, I'm not gonna beat myself up.
I am gonna get up early tomorrow and work on my novel and this long poem I'm working on right now.
Sue Campbell: I also think that being a mom kind of gives you really good tools on how to talk to yourself in a way, because you've cultivated this like patience and reservoir of how to deal with a little person.
Susie Meserve: Right. So
Sue Campbell: it's like if you treat yourself your writing time, like your potty training, right? And you're using like positive reinforcement instead of that, like, well, you blew it again.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. Well, I'm kind of cracking up because I am like the least patient person I know, and I'm constantly reminding myself as a parent to be more patient. Yeah. And as a writer, to be more patient. And so I'm not always probably as kind as I should be to myself or to my kids, but we're working on it.
Sue Campbell: Yeah. And that's real too. And I feel like I was more patient with my older kid. Because I was younger and had more energy there, so I'm totally with you.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. Okay, good.
Sue Campbell: Tell me what else, when you started working with moms, what else surprised you about the challenges that they're facing?
Susie Meserve: I think for a long time I told myself that it was really just about this like time thing.
Like it was just about carving out time. And I don't know who I was kidding, because I've just been realizing lately, probably because I am working with moms, creative moms just how many other things come into it. So, I mean, there's guilt and. It's very hip these days. Prob maybe just, you know, I live in northern California, it's very hip to be like, oh, guilt, let's just get rid of guilt, you know.
But I was talking to a friend the other day who's a video artist. She's, you know, does this really beautiful like photography and video work, and she said, I feel guilty when I'm not with my kid. I feel guilty when I'm not doing my work, it's like there's so many different ways to feel guilty as a woman in a society that's all about productivity, right? So, you know, guilt is one I think we have to name. For sure.
And then, two other things that come up, I mean, one is just that our relationship to our work really changes. Like I, as you said, I mean, matrescence like having children is such a huge transition in your life.
It's really a transformation. I mean, and frankly, for caregivers who actually gave birth like that in itself is just this wild, crazy, physical, spiritual, awful, you know? Yeah. Experience. And I don't know how anybody is the same afterwards, really. Like I really don't know how people are the same afterwards.
And so. By its nature, it changes your subject matter. It changes how you approach things. I mean, I sort of have this reputation in my family for like comparing everything to childbirth. Like I'll just be like, oh, well this house renovation, it's kinda like childbirth. We're almost on the other side of it. It's kind of nuts.
So there's that. And then, you know, another thing that was recently named for me by a client is grief. And what I mean by that is a lot of creative moms were once the kinds of people who didn't have to work very much. We were like super into poverty or we lived in communal housing and we just, we got by on very little money and we had, you know, a million different creative outlets.
I have a client and she was saying like, I used to just ride my bike all over town, go into a performance, going to a rehearsal, going to somebody's show, you know. Doing this thing and then all of a sudden, I mean, the realities of having kids are you need more money so that you can clothe and feed them.
And so you're probably working more than you were. And there can be a real grief that comes with this of like, wow, I am not able to be in the flow to be remotely as carefree as I used to be.
So I think that's an important thing to name that it's not just about logistics, it's really about you being a different person on the other side of having kids, a different person in many ways, including us, you know, as a creative.
Sue Campbell: And I think there's a lot of pressure culturally to say, oh, you should be able to perform just like you did before. Right? So I think women go in with a lot of unrealistic expectations about what they're gonna be able to do on the other side of motherhood.
And the fact is, of course, we develop absolute superpowers. If you are not a parent, you do not know the journey someone has been on when they show up in the office at nine 30, or they show up at the airport. That's my favorite. Right. Like it's been 14 hours of work crammed into two hours that person's already dealt with, right?
But it, it does eat up a lot of time and mental resources and physical resources. To be able to do that and then for you to put judgment on yourself that you can't do the kinds of things that you were able to do before is a, an absurd societal pressure that we need to let go of.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of ludicrous because of what you now know you are capable of, right? I sometimes say like, the amount of work I can get done in an hour is bonkers.
And you know, I am like highly efficient now because guess what? I just have, you know, just a fewer hours to do it. Of course in creative practice, efficiency is always like, that's an interesting thing because this same friend who was talking about guilt, she was telling me that someone said to her like, well, are you highly experimental when you get into your studio?
And she said, no, I work full-time and I have a pre-teen. I don't actually have time to be highly experimental. And you might argue that makes our work less interesting or something, but it's almost like we have to go back to what we know we can do well. And then, you know, make incremental improvements instead of like some radical thing.
Sue Campbell: Well, I think that gets to an important thing about like parenting has its seasons as well. Like if you're in the throes of raising a newborn, my thoughts are with you and it's not always gonna be like that.
Susie Meserve: Yes, this too shall pass.
Sue Campbell: Right. So you can think about trying to stay as present again. A lot of Buddhist principles work really well in parenting. Trying to stay in the moment and appreciate the season that you're in, and don't make it mean something about, oh my God, I'm never gonna fulfill my creative potential, right? Really honor where you are and know that things do shift and move. Right now I have an 18-year-old who's off at college and I have an 11-year-old who now has a phone and is in her room on her phone whole lot more than she used to be.
Susie Meserve: Yeah.
Sue Campbell: And so I'm having time become available that it looks very different this year than it did last year when I had two kids at home
Susie Meserve: Yes.
Sue Campbell: And didn't have a phone. So you gotta appreciate where you are and be looking for those ways to use what is available to you in this.
Susie Meserve: Absolutely. It's so important and I would just name that like most things in life, the seasons are like shifting in ways that you don't always anticipate, right? So when your kids are really little, pretty much you are on sabbatical from your work? I would say like for that first year anyway 'cause you're just not sleeping and you know, whatever else you're trying to do. I've been surprised. I have a teenager and I've been surprised by realizing how much more hands-on parenting is again all of a sudden.
Like that's I thought, oh wow. Now that he gets himself places like, I'm gonna have all this time, you know. It's not so, i'm in a high touch time as a parent right now, and so that is definitely impacting the amount of my own work that I'm getting done. So you have to, it's almost like you have to kind of like ride, ride this river and just be like, okay, I don't know what today's gonna look like.
Sue Campbell: Yeah, exactly. And I think it also having a couple of different creative projects that ask different things of you, so all I've got is 15 minutes today, i'm just gonna scribble out a poem or whatever it is you do, you can think about what can I pull out that is replenishing for me creatively and makes like i'm still in the game. But I don't have to pressure myself to write the Great American novel while I've got, you know, two kids under four years old or, whatever you have, right? And so I think that is a really helpful way to look at it as well.
Susie Meserve: Yeah. Agreed.
Sue Campbell: What other things do you just wish, right? Whether it's a practical tip or just a heartfelt sentiment. What do you wanna tell the moms out there who are worried they're not gonna have time or they're not gonna have energy for creativity?
Susie Meserve: I think a big one is that your story matters. You know, whether or not you're writing about parenthood or motherhood. And I think it's important to name that, that. You don't even have to write about those things if you don't want to. I mean, for me, they've very much come up.
I know they have for you too, Sue, but, you know, some women don't wanna write about motherhood. And that's fine. Like, but just that, you know, your story matters. We live in this weird time in this weird society. Oh let me just throw this in there.
I had a baby in Norway. My, my older son was born in Norway because we were living there at the time. Mm-hmm. And that's an interesting place because there's so much support for parents there, like financial support, logistical support. I mean, when he was born, they immediately put me into a mom's group with other moms who lived within a quarter mile of me.
And we would just meet up like, this is like, the state just does that for you. In American society, we are given a lot of pressure to have kids, like, I think that's really validated, like have children. But then all the other things you try to do once you have that kid are not so validated.
And that can lead to some feelings of like, oh, well what do I have to say? You know, doesn't matter, I'm just some mom out there. I think it's really important to remember that your work matters. You're still a productive and creative member of society. And if you want to do this thing, this creative project, you can do it and not to be afraid to ask for support. Like when I was on a panel about writing parents at the San Francisco Writers Conference, we talked about things like trading, childcare.
Because it's all well and good to say, oh, we'll just get a full-time nanny. Not everybody can afford that, frankly. But there are ways to get around it. We have family sometimes. Some of us, I think don't lean on our partners enough. Or we have friends who would be very happy to take our kids for a couple of hours so we can get some work done. So I guess I would just say, you know, your story matters and your process matters, and there are always ways to make this happen.
That's my belief. I hope that doesn't sound too too rosy.
Sue Campbell: No I think it's wonderful and I wholeheartedly agree. Where can people learn more about you and working with you?
Susie Meserve: I have a website and I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn and, you know, Facebook, all the places.
My last name is. Rhymes with reserve. Okay. It is spelled Meserve. I have a 12 week one-to-one coaching package called the Wild and Precious Life Coaching Package after the Mary Oliver poem. What do you wanna do with your one wild and precious life? So that I'm, you know, actively filling that.
I'm based in the San Francisco Bay area and I have a workshop in a couple of weeks taking place here. It's on March 21st and the details of that are on my website. That's for moms in the East Bay. Moms in the Bay Area, anyone who wants to travel to the East Bay.
And yeah, and I also regularly lead writing classes on my own and, you know, elsewhere.
Sue Campbell: Okay. Give us the name of your website again.
Susie Meserve: Okay. susiemeserve.com. www.susiemeserve.com.
Sue Campbell: That's Susie, S-U-S-I-E.
Susie Meserve: Yes.
Sue Campbell: As a fellow, Sue, I know there's a billion ways to spell Susie because I tried them all when I was in middle school.
Susie Meserve: Yeah, exactly right. Susie, S-U-S-I-E-M-E-S-E-R-V e.com, and I'm on Instagram @susiemeservewrites.
Sue Campbell: Okay. Beautiful. Yeah.
Well, thank you for coming and talking about this with me. There are a lot of people whose voices we want to hear, and they just need a little bit of support to
Susie Meserve: put
Sue Campbell: their voice out there too.
Susie Meserve: Yes.
Sue Campbell: Thank you so much.
Susie Meserve: Thank you.
Anne Hawley: If you'd like a weekly dose of writing, insight and mindset and marketing tips in your inbox, subscribe to the write anyway newsletter@pagesandplatforms.com slash subscribe. And that's it for this episode of the Write. Anyway, podcast, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.