Writer Anita Desai on her writing practice, from a 2012 article, and the pain of interruption: 

The writing I did as an adult took place, like my childhood writing, in the midst of a family of four children. I am often asked by the practically-minded, “How did you manage to write all those books while raising your children?” I explain that having them was what allowed me to stay home and write instead of going out to work or, worse, entering Delhi society. I did so by obediently following their routine: going to my desk as soon as they left for school, then putting my papers away before they came home. I kept to this routine all through the school term, then suspended writing during their holidays or when they were in bed with the measles. It instilled a rhythm in me that continued even after they had all left home. It was my discipline, and don’t all writers fall back on just that—discipline? It also became a habit for me, as smoking cigarettes might be for another.

If this makes me sound like an automaton, it was deliberate; something I had to submit to in order not to explode with frustration. I could not have spoken to anyone of what it cost me to put work aside just when it acquired momentum and began to flow with rare, perilous ease, or the struggle to pick up the thread where it had been broken, and mend and make it whole again.