Wednesday 25 April 2012

Getting A Life . . .

A writer's life is often quite dull and recluse.  I say dull in the context that they often shut themselves away rather than going out and being social.  They'd rather have an evening with words than a night on the town.  Or they prefer the company of their characters more than their friends (for the moment anyway).

I'm in a rut.  I work from home therefore see nobody during the day unless my colleague or boss skypes me.  My husband is a long distance lorry driver which means he's away most of the week, and all my friends are too busy with their work life during the week to even contemplate being social (weekends are saved for hubby time).

This means from Tuesday (I make a point of going out on Monday to my Writers' Circle just to get out the house) to Friday, it's just me and the cat.  I don't actually mind this.  I like my cat's company, and it does give me lots of free time to write, draw, watch what I want to watch on TV, but there's a down side.

Without going and being sociable, with nothing interesting or exciting going on in your life, you can lose that creative spark.  It becomes dull.  When I worked in our old office and before I started driving, it used to take me 40 minutes to walk to the bus stop, 20 minutes on the bus to the office, and then repeat the whole process coming home.  And when I did get home, my evenings were spent writing, writing, writing.  I got loads done.  Now I find myself with all this spare time and words fail me.

I'm not a full time writer, but I understand that to be so takes a huge amount of discipline.  If you were home all day with all that spare time to write, would you be as creative as the person who has to squeeze an hour or so in everyday during their busy schedule?  It's tough.  And proves that writers still need a life to be able to work to their full potential.

2 comments:

  1. I'm in that lucky position and I've discovered the most important thing is routine. I'm not happy unless my bums on the chair and facing a blank screen from 9.30 until three with an hour for lunch. Break the routine and I'm like a balloon with the air suddenly let out. All over the place and then soggy and limp. Hmm. Could have thought of a better image, maybe

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  2. lol...thanks Mike. My head is now filled with random images of all things soggy and limp.

    I went from someone who had to squeeze in an hour or two somewhere to someone with far too much uninterrupted time on their hands. I think being strict with routine is important when adjusting to this change - and it's a change that has messed with my flow.

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