As writers, we put ourselves under a lot of pressure. Deadlines, arranging words in the right order, showering. It’s all rather stressful.

Throw in children (or out. See Number 6) and no one should wonder why we bleed from our ears. It’s called Writer’s Ear. Or maybe you’ve never experienced Writer’s Ear; it might be just me. I should probably get that checked.

We all became writers for one reason: to get the words out of our head. Being a parent is much the same. If I’m not shouting, “take that out of your mouth,” “I’m not hugging you, I’m picking a kidney,” and “stop that or you’ll go blind,” I’m probably in the wrong house.

According to Data USA (voted the most boring name in data collecting six years running), there are 181,131employed writers in the United States, excluding self-employed/self-published authors, and that person who did 50 Shades of Grey.

Couple that with the fact the U.S. Census Bureau determined 40.66 percent of American households have children, it’s safe to assume at least some of those households contain writers—some of whom apparently weren’t too awkward to have sex with their spouse. Maybe five, or even six of them. I don’t know. Math is hard.

For every lonely alcoholic writer stereotype, sitting at a bar, needing a shave, scratching thoughts on a stained napkin only to go home and throw up something they don’t remember eating, there’s a writer with children.

And those children make the alcoholic writer stereotype appealing. Sure, these writers may be sloppy drunks, but they at least get to leave the house. Children like something called “attention” that binds writers to their property. We’re prisoners, and our wardens may have trouble hitting the toilet.

Parenting is a demanding job, but so’s writing. How do we do both? It’s easy if you follow Jason Offutt’s Seven-Step Stress-free Method of Writing and Child Rearing:

1. Hide. Young parents with small children don’t understand the importance of hiding from them. If they can’t find you, they can’t ask questions, such as “Whatcha doin’?” “Can I watch TV?” and “Do you seriously think writing is going to pay for my college education?” To hide effectively, program your children to believe the basement is haunted by Hitler’s ghost. Put a cozy chair and coffee bar down there for maximum comfort.
2. Ignore your children. The average five-year-old will only shout for a parent 25.6 times before becoming distracted by a squirrel outside their window. This gives the writer-parent precious time to peck two-to-three uninterrupted sentences into a Word document named, “DearGodHelpMe_FirstDraft.”
3. Tell the child not to do something, then leave the room.
4. Eat chocolate. You may not realize this but getting into that bag of Twix stashed in the top of the bedroom closet will help your writing career. A 2009 paper in the Journal of Proteome Research showed eating chocolate reduces stress by lowering levels of stress hormones. This also gives you the satisfaction of not sharing treats with the cause of that stress. Little turds.
5. Turn a radio onto the oldies station and start singing.
6. Make the children go away. Not in a The Twilight Zone kind of way, more like the irresponsible parenting kind of way; it’s easier. If your kids haven’t returned by the time you’ve finished writing, post their Xbox for sale online. They’ll be home.
7. Read The Shining for bedtime. Although your children may need therapy later in life, they will NOT get out of bed to ask for anything, giving you plenty of time to finish that parenting book you’ve been working on.

Happy writing.

Pre-order Jason Offutt’s new novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.