Is it really that bad to put my 3yo in full-time nursery so I can work on my novel?

[FoxBomber]

I’ve taken a year out of my job (corporate, very full on) to finally try and finish a novel I’ve been working on for years. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do properly, not just in scraps of time after bedtime.

DD is 3 and we’ve got a lovely local nursery that has space for her full time. She’s been going a couple of mornings a week already and adores it. They do forest school, messy play, loads of outdoor time.

But I’ve had some pushback (mostly MIL but a few others too) about whether it’s “right” to send her full time when I’m “not working.” The implication being that because I’m not being paid to write, it doesn’t count.

For me, this year is a serious commitment, not just a bit of scribbling while she naps. I’ve planned it all out and I’m treating it like a proper job. I want to give it the best shot I can.

I do feel guilty though. Like I should be making more of these early years, or that I’m being selfish. But at the same time, I know I’d be a better mum if I felt fulfilled in myself too.

Is full-time nursery unreasonable in this context? Or am I just second guessing everything because of the mum guilt?

This refers to me and our ten hours, that’s fine.
The bonus is, we can work effectively, we have savings, we have a lovely house with our horses at home, our DD has a pony she rides at home. We go on lots of lovely holidays and trips.

We don’t stress about the cost of living even with nursery bills, we never worry about meeting our bills each month. I don’t have to worry about food banks, allowances, making ends meet.

Sure, she has long days when at nursery, but she and my family have an awesome life when not working/at Nursery.

I’m sorry, but whilst it might not be perfect for everyone, we don’t have the stresses others worry about, because we both are able to have our careers to fund it.

I agree.

I grew up with parents who scrimped and scraped, stressed over bills, couldn't afford holidays etc and it was miserable. I wanted more financial security for my DC than what I had and that includes more than just the basics but also a nice house in a good area with decent schools and holidays.

We also do have some time after nursery too and then there's weekends, annual leave, holidays etc. Plenty of lovely quality time.

One of the things I do/did for a living is read manuscripts and advise emerging/developing writers. I'm also a published writer, though not one who has worked in particularly profitable/commercial genres - so most of my income has come from other(writing-related activity. Most of these MSS are very near being unreadable. Yes, there are people out there who are writing good publishable fiction off their own bat - or who may not be writing it at the moment - but will get there eventually under their own steam. And there are certainly kinds of genre fiction for which self-publishing works, especially if someone has got time and energy in terms of self-promotion.

I think I do just get very tired of all this 'live your dream stuff', when it comes to writing, because it is a skill that needs time and work. Nobody would think that someone could take a year off work and quickly become a concert pianist, or an artist whose work would get become commissioned and exhibited. But for some reason everybody thinks they can just go off and write a novel.

And of course it may be that the original poster has previously had work published or a creative writing background - but this would be a logical thing to mention in the initial or subsequent post.

I am not actually sure I find writing that fulfilling - which is a weird thing to say given how many years I've done it for. I do it quite well and enjoy the process of getting stuff into shape. It's also great when other writers you respect give you good feedback. But for the most part it is actually an astonishingly lonely activity.

Is it full time 9am-3pm or 7.30-6pm? If the latter I wouldn't do it

@PollyHutchen Hi. Please may I leap off tangent and ask for your advice/experise? I'm a copywriter currently doing an MA and my goal is to get a Tudor period historical fiction novel published. Which agent or agency would you recommend querying?

Expertise

And also what is it exactly that makes you yay or nay a manuscript?

I don’t disagree about writing being lonely and difficult at times, and that a lot of people posture about wanting to write. It comes up on here on threads about ‘dream careers’ all the time, but it’s clear that what these posters actually want is to have written a successful novel, and to be drifting about in a house like Diane Keaton’s character’s in whichever film that is where she wears white polo necks, writes, and shags Jack Nicholson. Because there’s nothing stopping anyone writing, if they want to. You can write on public transport or on your lunchbreak, or during your baby’s naps. Do it every day for fifteen minutes and you will eventually have a book. You don’t need equipment or training. But the OP is putting her money where her mouth is. It could be she’ll discover she can’t write, or doesn’t want to, but it could be she writes something good.

I'm an author (5 novels written, with 3 published by big publishers, and 4 self-pubbed pen name novels) and I would agree that you're unlikely to be productive for five full days a week. I'm curious about why you've decided now is the right time for this, rather than in a year's time, when your child will presumably be in school, reducing the financial impact. Writing is something with a long learning process, and timing is really important when it comes to things like writing courses and committing time and money to trying to make a go of it.
I wrote my first novel around a full time professional career and DC1 who was a toddler when I started. While writing it, I joined a writing group and was an active member of an online forum with a really good critique group. Those things gave me enough experience to shape my ideas into something approaching a proper draft, which took about a year. I then took it to a writing festival which offered 1:1 sessions with agents/consultants. It had largely positive feedback, but it was clear I had a lot of work to do.
The first real investment I made was paying for a manuscript appraisal from a literacy consultancy. This suggested some structural changes, which I made over the course of a few months, around work and children. By this time, I was working three days a week with DC1 in preschool and DC2 in nursery for those three days. I had also started doing some freelance writing work, which was bringing in a bit of extra money, and letting me build a writing CV. I went to a festival with the rewritten novel and came away with a couple of full manuscript requests, and signed with an agent a couple of weeks later.
That novel was never picked up, and I wrote a second one, still around part-time work. DC1 was in school by now, and DC2 went to nursery an extra day to let me write. That novel probably took around a year to write. I was also writing short stories and had a decent success rate with submissions/competitions. I'd been thinking about doing an MA for a while, but I'd felt that I needed to have a decent foundation before committing, in order to make the most of it. I applied towards the end of writing book 2, which had some interest but ultimately no offer, and used the course to write book 3. At this time, I was working 2 days a week in my day job, doing 2 days on the MA and using the 5th day for freelance work and working on the novel. I also wrote in the evenings and on trains etc.
Book 3 was picked up by a Big 5 publisher for a good enough deal to let me make the switch to full time writing after DC3 was born. Despite writing full time, book 4 took far longer to write than any of the others. Book 5 was also a slow write. As others have said, it's hard to be productive for long stretches of time. I get distracted easily when I'm not on a clock. If I'm on a deadline or restricted for time, I'm far more focused and productive. I started a creative writing teaching job a couple of years ago, and that works out much better in terms of giving me more of a structured week.
While all that sounds quite convoluted, I don't think I would have got there any quicker by taking a stretch of time out to write earlier in the process. There is so much to learn in the early stages - things you don't even know you don't know - and a lot of it comes from doing it, not getting it quite right, getting some feedback, then doing it again better. I think the rise of novel writing courses is broadly a good thing, as there are some basics that can save writers a lot of time if they get to grips with them early on, but I do think there should be more discussion about the right time to invest in a course or an appraisal.
If I were you, OP, depending on how much actual writing you've done, I would look at something like 3 days of nursery/writing, and use the money you save to do some courses or attend festivals/events, or for mentoring or manuscript appraisal. Three days of writing combined with some really good quality teaching/feedback would be a great investment in a writing career.

I wouldn’t. Kids need validation from their parents (or relatives or family friends) not strangers. I’d worry about their mental health when older. Loss of family identity is another reason

Keep them close is my motto (until they’re old enough to be fed up with you 😂)

What nonsense. The three year old would be continuing in her current childcare setting, not being kept in a zoo.

I think a good nursery at 3 is good, helps with school readiness.

Being an authour is a job, just not paid monthly. But even if not it still can be good for her. Lots of children much younger than 3 are in full time nursery.

I'd do the writing in the evening. In two years she'll be in school.

I've been a published author for over 12 years with "Big 5" publishers. I wrote my first published book during nap times and evenings. (This was not, however, my first book, just the first to get sold.) When I signed my first contract, I was still only working during those limited windows--and succeeding. I had five books under contract when my child was 3 years old, and while this was a multi-year deal, I had about three good hours of work time each day, and the rest was done at night when she was sleeping. My writing income simply couldn't justify the expense of childcare, and I was able to make the most of the short blocks of time I had. I have now published many, many books and make a very decent living, but to this day, I work around school hours, so still not eight hours a day. I have several multi-published author friends and all of them have worked around their children's schedules.

It is very rare that I put in an eight-hour day unless I am in the editing stages. Outlining, plotting, and planning all take time, but this is done up front, before the drafting begins, and it only takes a matter of days. As others have said, it's hard to be creative for more than a couple of hours at a time. I usually aim for 2-3k words per day, as beyond that quality suffers unless I am on a tight deadline and have no choice. I can usually reach this word count in two hours unless I am blocked.

Given your situation, I'd honestly stick to writing during nap times and evenings.