How Being an Empty-Nester Affects Writing

Very early in my career, I dreamed about what it would be like to have a few novels under my belt and a real office, not the bathroom where my children poked their fingers under the door to play 'can you see my fingers, Mommy?' I imagined hours, not minutes, that were mine to do with as I pleased. When that time came, I would know that I had finally arrived. Because only then would I be a real author.

(Making Peace With Your Pace.)

What I had back then were tiny, sometimes minuscule slices of time. Think, 15 minutes in the pick-up line at school, 40 minutes during softball practice, 11 minutes before a doctor’s appointment, a luxurious uninterrupted 60 minutes during a tech week rehearsal of The Jungle Book. And any few seconds I could scrape together outside of the fundraising work I did for local organizations.

It was hectic and challenging, but in those stolen moments, I wrote a book, then another, and then a few more. And with each new book, the minutes available to me started to lengthen, almost imperceptible at first, until one day, poof! I had earned myself an office, a desk with a view of my beloved mountains, a warm, glowing salt lamp to set the mood just right, and an entire day stretching ahead of me to, you guessed it, write to my heart’s content. 

But when I got to the place where the house was full of a blissful, peaceful quiet and time flowed like a river, it felt, well, a little disappointing. Suddenly, the day loomed ahead of me, taunting, provocative, challenging me to fill all those many, many minutes with copious amounts of words, sentences, and incredible, unique phrasing that could only come to me in this, my empty nest. With so much time available, I could be writing five books, not one. I should be the most productive author of all time.

But I wasn’t.

The truth was, with so much time, the days felt empty. I missed my kids. I missed the busy schedules and the rushed dinners; I missed my seven minutes where I could bang out 800 words and think nothing of it. I missed the old me, the full house, the slices of time, not this new version with nothing but hours to fill with sluggish and uninspired writing.

I didn’t expect to miss the chaos, and it surprised me, along with every other thing that comes with mid-life and rhymes with schmenopause. So it’s taken some time and self-reflection to figure out why now—when writing should be easy—it’s not.

How do we, as writers with ever-changing lives and responsibilities, maintain our creativity when life slows down and the noise around us stills? I’m still figuring this out; after all, it is my first time doing this stage of life, too. But what I’m learning is that my creativity feeds on connection and community. And what moves the pen isn’t time or peace and quiet. It’s experiences and relationships; it’s sharing our stories, making time for others, and the chaos that comes from living.

I am learning that there is no arrival point, whether that’s in my writing career or in my roles as a parent, wife, daughter, sister, friend. Because to have ‘arrived’ means that I have no other place to be. And that’s not how I see my career or life. There’s always something new to learn, people to meet, experiences to have, more successes and more failures, too. 

So, no more hours and hours at my desk with the pretty mountain view. Instead, I limit my time in my office, set small, attainable writing goals, and then I get out of the house and write at a coffee shop with my dog, or I hike with a friend, sweat it out in a fitness class, call my kids, or check in with fellow authors. Recently, I worked with other community members to organize the Mountain Stories Literary Festival (September 25-26, 2026) to highlight local authors and expand outreach by offering craft workshops for the many youth and adult writers in our community. I love it, and the work with others sure beats writing in my car during softball practice.

Do I still yearn for the hectic early days? Not anymore. Because it’s not about having all the time in the world to write our books. That’s the beauty of our craft—we can do it anywhere, anytime. And while a part of me will always miss the full and overflowing nest, the fingers under the bathroom door, the slices of time, I am enjoying the freedom of discovering who I am now and how it will influence the stories and characters I create.

Creativity doesn’t thrive in isolation and story doesn’t start at a desk. Both need oxygen to grow and thrive; both require us to make connections, to have new experiences, to be part of our communities. So whether you’re in the messy chaos of youth or struggling with the peace of an empty nest, look for new ways to feed your craft. Stay involved with your writing groups or join a new one with fresh perspectives. Take a class. Teach a class. Schedule a writing session with a fellow writer at your favorite local spot. Hike, run, do yoga, take a walk, swim in a lake. And in all those slices of time we have in between living, write. 

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