If your child has special needs, you’re probably exhausted. Not just a little tired. I mean wiped out. All.The.Time. (If that’s not your experience, please let me in on your secret!) You may find yourself working day in and day out to improve your kid’s outcomes. Reading articles about social, emotional, and physical development. Maybe you’re providing an extra educational boost at home during the pandemic. Or maybe you are 100% homeschooling. Right now, all parents are tired. But I think it’s accurate to say that many (most?) special needs parents were already feeling pushed to their limits before Covid-19. I know I was. Now, stress levels have somehow risen higher than we could’ve imagined possible.

And yet, we still need to create time for ourselves. My outlet is writing. If I could live in a library, spending my days reading, researching, and writing fiction, I would. But that’s not real life. And so, when I began navigating the educational system for my child, my creative life deteriorated. I found I didn’t have enough energy left for my novel. I worked in fits and starts. I stopped finishing short stories. I met with my writing group, but I never had anything to submit for critique.

Then something strange happened. I took a job. I hadn’t taught in about nine months, and I still felt busy all the time. But I said yes to teaching Novel Writing because I absolutely loved teaching it last year. Now that I have a responsibility to think about writing, and to guide others as they find their way to a completed manuscript, I’m finding that I have more creative energy. In addition to preparing weekly lessons and reading/critiquing other writers’ work, I’m also getting back into a regular writing practice. It’s funny, because one piece of writing advice I absolutely loathe is the decree that “real writers write every day.” I think the reason I hate it so much is that it usually seems to come from people in positions of extreme privilege–like a super wealthy, older male with either no children or a partner who seemingly performs all the caregiving. Often this person is already a famous novelist. So, my kneejerk reaction is always they have no idea what real life is like. Not everyone can write every day. I still believe that’s true. But I’m also finding myself able to write nearly every day…and it’s not like I discovered new hours that weren’t there before. I’m prioritizing because it’s making me feel really good. And I found a system that’s working for me. So far. (I really hope I’m not jinxing this by writing about it!)

What I’ve started doing is simple. After my child is at school (either in person or online), I take a cup of coffee to my writing area and open my manuscript. Then, I write 500 words. No matter what, I stop when I hit my word count goal. I’ve found I often have more to say than those 500 words, but I stop anyway. This works for me because I’m not burning myself out. There are a few more tips to my new process, and I’ll share those soon. In the meantime, is there a number of words that seems within reach to you? Maybe it’s less than 500. Maybe it’s more. Either way, if you’ve been in a creative rut, maybe a new writing routine is in order. And who knows? Maybe tapping into your creative outlet begets further creativity.