"How do you write with small children?"

My most important ritual, explained in an essay for Shondaland

(Disclaimer: The strategy I detail in this post is not the true answer to how I write with small children.

The real secret to writing with small children is this: money.

It’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. I can write with small children because I pay for childcare. And, occasionally, grocery delivery. And sometimes I pay for other sorts of domestic labor, too).

STILL: aside from paying for it, here’s my other secret to how I write with kids.

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I have one ritual that I’ve done every single day since my first child was born over eight years ago. I engage in this ritual dutifully, prioritizing it in the same way I make time for brushing my teeth, showering, or just about any other hygienic habit.

This ritual provides me mental clarity and focus. It sparks my creativity and slows down the chatter in my brain, allowing more interesting thoughts to rise to the surface.

This habit makes me nicer, faster, and smarter. After practicing it, I feel like a better mom, a better writer, and a better employee.

What is this magical habit, you ask?

Photo by Lloyd Newman on Unsplash

I close my eyes.

Every single day. Usually in the middle of the day. Preferably for twenty minutes.

My ideal conditions are this: during the time my children are napping and/or engaging in quiet time, I go to my room. I lie face down on the bed. And I close my eyes.

Of course, with three small children, pets, and a job, I don’t always have the ideal conditions. Often, my time is interrupted with meetings or whining, fevers or barking — so it’s not *always* twenty minutes, nor is it *always* at home.

Sometimes I close my eyes at my work desk. Sometimes I close them on the floor of my children’s playroom. Sometimes I close them at a soccer game.

Sometimes I close my eyes as someone screams, mommy, mommy, the dog pooped in the living room!

But still, I close my eyes.

I can close them in the dark, in a tree, in a car. I can close them here or there. I can close them anywhere.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

This habit is a way for me to get a break, even when I can’t get a real break.

For a brief time each day, I shut off one form of input. This helps me feel less overstimulated. The practice feels like mindful breathing. I always, always feel better afterward. I make a point to prioritize it.

Because I don’t know many people who also have an eye-closing practice (maybe you do? Tell me if we’re kindred spirits in the comments!), one day after opening my eyes, I thought to myself:

I could write an essay about this.

And I knew exactly who I planned to pitch: Derrik Lang at Shondaland. I’d written several lifestyle essays for him before, and I loved how these pieces were often reflective and instructive in nature.

Here’s the pitch I sent:

Dear Derrik Lang, 

I hope you're well! Thank you so much for running my recent lifestyle essay on playing piano badly and for commissioning my piece about the Olsen twins. I hope you'll consider my 1,000-word Lifestyle essay tentatively titled, "I close my eyes for twenty minutes each day for self-care." 

It's one o'clock in the afternoon on a beautiful Saturday. The birds are chirping and the sun is out as I shut the blinds of my windows. I pull back the covers on my bed to lay belly-down and bury my face in a pillow. I am not depressed, nor am I grieving -- I am practicing what I have found to be critical self-care: closing my eyes for twenty minutes in a dark room. 

When I had my first child, a nurse gave me the maddening advice to "sleep when baby sleeps." Although I found that, despite exhaustion, the pressure of timing my sleep cycles with my child's was often the opposite of restorative, I did develop a practice of laying down in the dark and closing my eyes during my son's midday nap. I rarely actually fell asleep -- and yet, something about this practice gave me the energy to tackle the tasks for the rest of the day. 

Even when I went back to work, when I added another child, when both of those children stopped napping, I continued to prioritize this self-care practice of closing my eyes for about twenty minutes in the middle of the day. It took the same amount of time as standing in line for a cup of coffee, after all. Though I preferred the practice in bed, I could do it at my office desk. In my parked car. On the couch with Paw Patrol playing in the background. Even when I had to adapt my ritual to the day's constraints, I felt very real benefits to both my mood and my energy levels. 

Derrik said yes right away, with one caveat: I needed to add reporting. Here’s what he suggested:

I dig the overall idea for this essay, but unlike your other more narrative-driven pieces you've written for us, it feels like it would need to be more of a reported essay with a few expert voices in there. Let me know if you would be interested in that direction.

That sounded like a fun challenge. I responded to his email by saying yes, I’d love to add reporting. Then I gave a few names of people I could interview.

I did a bit of research to see if I could find people who were experts in topics related to rest and relaxation. I looked for people who had written books about these topics. And I also searched for academics who had been cited in articles about similar subjects (this indicated that these experts were generally open to interviews and may be more likely to respond to my interview request).

Derrik assigned me the piece, and he offered a rate of $650 for 1,500 words.

Photo by CoWomen on Unsplash

Prior to writing this essay, I’d done a bit of reporting. I’d interviewed women who grew up in purity culture for my memoir, Famished, as well as experts in fields related to embodiment, disordered eating, and religious trauma.

Having completed dozens of interviews for my book, I’d learned some critical skills. I felt comfortable recording and transcribing conversations (TapeACall is my app of choice). I knew what general information you should request from your interviewee (preferred name and title, as well as location), and I was aware that some of the best responses happened at the end of the interview whenever you asked,

is there anything I didn’t ask that you would like to tell me?

Unfortunately, the experts that I suggested to Derrik never ended up responding to my interview requests. So, I posted a request for sources in a private journalism social media group. I described the premise of my essay, and I asked if anyone who had expertise related to that topic would be willing to talk to me.

From this request, I connected with Olga Mecking, author of Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing, and clinical hypnotherapist and neurolinguistic practitioner Olivia Dreizen Howell.

And I interviewed both of them while I had children at home. I spoke to Mecking (who was in a totally different time zone from me) early in the morning. My kids had just woken up for the day, and I let them watch an episode of Paw Patrol while I completed the interview in my bedroom.

Olivia Dreizen Howell and I connected while I was on a beach vacation with family. I stole away to the basement of our condo for fifteen minutes to speak to her (and my husband built sandcastles with the kids while I was away).

(Should my next essay be on multi-tasking with kids and work-life boundaries? Never mind. Don’t answer this rhetorical question in the comments)

Photo by Nel Ranoko on Unsplash

Unfortunately, Derrik Lang is no longer at Shondaland (and they no longer run written essays). If I were pitching this piece today, I would try other health and wellness outlets, and/or sites devoted to lifestyle content.

Because I had an established relationship with the editor at Shondaland, I didn’t try to give this a timely hook. But if I were pitching it someplace new, I might try to connect it to the calendar or news cycle in some way. For instance, during an election season, I might tie my ritual to the importance of taking a break from constant political input. Or, maybe I would hold it until the New Year, offering the eye closing ritual as a unique, simple wellness resolution.

My essay went live several months after I filed it, and I was really pleased with the final product. If you’re interested, check it out here: I Close My Eyes for 20 Minutes Each Day (shondaland.com)

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Thanks for reading about my rituals and pitching process. What questions do you have for me? I would love to answer in the comments.

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This is part of a monthly series called Path to Publication.

In it, I will unpack the story behind my stories. These reflections are part process, part strategy.

Thanks for reading On writing and publishing with Anna Rollins! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

There will be clear takeaways for your own creative work. I will include sample pitches, along with editors’ names and rates (at the time my published pieces went live). I’m sharing the intel I’ve gathered in the hope that it can help you place your own work.

At the beginning of 2022, I had, essentially, zero bylines. Since then (in the span of two years), I’ve published nearly 50 short essays. It’s not like I became particularly prolific. I’ve always been a writer. I just became serious about learning the tips and tricks for placing a piece in a popular outlet. And that’s what I’m looking forward to sharing with you.