Towards the Rising Sun

Parents that Write #25 Q&A with Ellie Nova

Welcome to Parents That Write.

Parent writers, artists, and creators are more than just their ‘chaos’—we’re publishing books, dropping albums, optioning screenplays, and making magic every day.

How do they do it? That's what we're here to find out. Each week, my guests tackle eight quickfire questions, plus a few wildcards. But first, a peek into my own creative life:

No-Fluff Notes from my Writing Life

Knowing Your Own Process

There’s a mountain of advice out there on how to write a book. Write every day. Get up at 5 AM. Make it a habit. Take your time. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Not for me.

I wrote NOISE in 18 days. Not just a draft—the entire manuscript, from start to finish. It wasn’t by accident. It was a necessity. A high-risk strategy, sure, but one that had to fit my life and my process.

I knew from experience that extreme focus, total immersion, and a ticking clock don’t overwhelm me to the point of collapse—they fuel me.

The pressure, the urgency—it doesn’t stress me out entirely; it drives me. Unless it doesn’t, and then it is carnage.

Extreme focus. Total immersion. A clock ticking down. I can’t write in slow, measured steps. It’s all or nothing.

For some, that sounds like utter hell. But for me? It’s the only way a book gets written. Fact: I repeated the same process for my next book on fatherhood identity, SPUNK, a year later.

Stop Fighting Your Own Brain

We’re sold this piffle that “real” writers show up the same way every day, building their books word by word. That’s a great process, if it works for you.

But forcing yourself into someone else’s rhythm? That’s a fast track to frustration.

➡️ If you thrive under slow and steady discipline? Honour that.
➡️ If you need urgency and tunnel vision? Create that pressure.

Your process isn’t wrong just because it doesn’t look like someone else’s. Self-knowledge is our biggest writing tool.

Next week, I’ll talk about the strange comedown of handing a book over to an editor. The double-edged relief, the restlessness, and what comes next. And my fabulous guest,

Heidi Fiedler

shares how writing is both a must and a treat. Hope to see you here!

Today, I’m delighted to be in conversation with

Ellie Nova

who holds a beautiful Substack space challenging cultural narratives around alcohol.

A Little Fantastic Sober Life

is a place for connection, conversation, and rewriting the script on addiction and wellbeing.

Share a broad snapshot of your life. Who are you parent to and/or have caring responsibilities for?

I am a parent to my four-year-old son River, and I care for him with my husband. We all live together in a small Victorian terraced house in Lewes, East Sussex in the UK. We're both freelance but as my husband earns more than me, he works full time while I only have until 2:30 each day until I have to drop whatever I'm doing and head across the other side of town to pick up my son from nursery.

Since September 2024 I've had childcare each day (nursery and one day a week my husband's parents look after River) and it has been such a huge help. We also have a brilliant community of families here, but most people we know have little kids and while we'd love to support each other more, we all feel pretty overwhelmed so it's limited, at the moment, how we can help each other with caring for the children.

Where can we find you?

Writing Website | Coaching | Instagram | Substack

Can you share favourite praise for your writing?

Feedback for my portfolio I submitted for my MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths (which I earned a distinction for and was shortlisted for the Pat Kavanagh Prize):
"It's such a pleasure to read your work. Even when the subject matter is painful and sad as it often is, the lens you use to look at the past - the words and modes of expression - combine the heart and mind, content and form, in a way that is tremendously engaging and moving. . Your commentary shows us the hard work, terrific range of reading, and above all the guts and heart to know when to reconfigure something that is not working and to recognize that frisson of ‘aliveness’ that marks out a writer with her ear to the heart. This is work of the highest quality."

Why do you write?

Because I must. Because it's within me and flows out of me as an essential means of expression... I have written since I was a small child. I write to express myself, to try to understand and explain my experience of the world. It's a unique way of re-forming my inner world into a medium that I hope enables people to understand me... And I write because I am skilled at it and having a craft that I feel confident in and good at and receive positive feedback from is of course something I want to pursue.

What does the inside of your writing mind look like?

My first thought was a magical realm of mountains, dark skies and monsters. I am drawn to magical realism and writing in ways that are strange and dark and experimental to some degree, and I think that's because of what exists in my mind - or a way in which I see the world. When I'm writing there's flow and so perhaps we can add a river to that image of the magical realm... Or me on a horse, hair flying, sword and shield on my back, riding towards the rising sun...

How is your ability to write affected by being a parent and your ability to parent affected by your writing?

My ability to write is affected enormously by being a parent. I'm sure everyone says this - but of course it's the lack of time and the exhaustion. You need time and energy to be able to write. I can't believe the audacious amount of time I used to have. Having said that, since becoming a parent I can't faff around as much and procrastinate and if I do have the energy and inspiration I do everything I can to write. In the early days that meant writing one-handed in the Notes on my phone while pushing the pram while River slept. Nowadays it means putting on the TV and rushing upstairs to spill out the words on my laptop before I hear 'mummy! can I watch another one?'

I'm not sure my ability to parent is really affected by my writing, unless you count these occasional periods of extra TV watching as significant. But the TV goes on anyway - it's just I'm usually doing housework when it's on!

How often do you write with your child around or not, and what kind of writing do you get done when your child is nearby?

I rarely write with River around, apart from the examples in my previous answer. I am writing all this right now in the evening while my husband looks after River, but this is rare. If I had the energy and inspiration perhaps this would happen more but usually my evenings are spent doing the washing up, tidying and then collapsing on the sofa to watch TV. River doesn't play independently - he needs my constant attention - so it's impossible to write if it's just me looking after him, unless I put the TV on.

What is your best writing habit?

Before I start writing, I spend ten minutes or so reading the work of other writers. Often poetry, or a few pages of a writer I love. It opens up my mind, inspires me and gets me into the zone.

What are the three most important characteristics of being a writer who is a parent?

➡️ Acceptance

➡️ Patience

➡️ Knowing that perhaps 'not now' but someday the time, space and energy will return.

What or who is your secret writing weapon?

I used to struggle so much with perfectionism and was terrified of the blank page. Now, often, before I write I say: 'I'm going to write rubbish now. This is going to be absolute rubbish and I'm going to write it anyway.' It takes the pressure off and frees me up to experiment and play. And of course, usually it isn't rubbish at all and there's some good stuff in there I can take, or even a whole piece of value that just needs some good editing.

What or who has been the most significant creative influence in your life?

At different stages in my life these books and writers have completely changed how I saw writing and how I was 'allowed' to write and what writing could be. In Sixth Form at school reading 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. In university doing my BA in English and Philosophy reading 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf'. And in my early 30s doing my MA in Creative and Life Writing reading 'The Beauty of the Husband' by Anne Carson.

What motivates you to write amongst the flurry of family life?

It's an urge, a need, a must! I have this huge energy in me that feels caged and stifled if I don't pursue it. I have these fantasies of being, as Jenny Offill describes, an 'art monster'. Someone who selfishly and audaciously dedicates their time to the creation of art, above all else. And of course I don't do this, but even indulging this in small ways feels essential for me so I don't go completely mad... Creativity and writing is something fizzing in my veins, in my being, something burning inside me that wants to be expressed.

What unfinished writing projects do you have lying about?

My memoir. I had been writing it, in a way, for about 10 years but then really committed to it when I was doing my MA, the year before my son was born. I got so far with it and felt like I was gaining momentum - but then I gave birth and felt like I fell of a cliff with it all. I have come back to it a few times over the past few years... But now I actually think I have changed so much and learned so much through the process of becoming a mother that my memoir would be so different now. Especially in how I see my parents and how they raised me and my siblings - I have a lot more understanding and compassion for them now!

What is the favourite sentence you’ve ever written, and why?

‘Once, when I was little, I was knocked over by the wind.'

This is a line from my memoir, and from my MA portfolio. It is the beginning of a vignette - just a few sentences - describing the time I was four-years-old, on my way to nursery, holding my mother's hand, on a windy day. This little story, this image, comes just after I write about the moment my mother died when I was 14. I imagine it cinematically and can see the image of me in my navy coat with the hood blown over my head, and the sound of the wind, and me letting go of my mother's hand as I fell to the ground.

What’s your favourite quote from a writer?

"Terror [is] when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute.” - Stephen King

Closing out this Column with:

“"Write a short story a week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row." -- Ray Bradbury

PARENTS WHO THINK (AND CREATE) TO THE COMMENTS 👇🏻

That sentence "Once, when I was little, I was knocked over by the wind." stopped me in my tracks. Poignant, powerful, perfect. Do you have a favourite sentence you’ve written? One that lingers, that holds weight, that makes you proud?

I don’t have a single sentence, but I have a little title that tickles my fancy: "It’s business doing pleasure with you." Drop YOUR fave below. Let’s read, celebrate, and admire them together.

Sending you love,
Danusia x