His daughter Jan-Michelle also began to write during her teen years. He gave her his , and told her "You can use my (last) name." She wrote under the name Jan Kerouac, and published novels and stories herself, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Kerouac's mother became sick, and he sometimes worked at her bedside on stories. She helped him work out the ending of "Pic", his novel about a young African-American.