My Mum rang today and amongst other things we talked about her re-reading of The Bell Jar in preparation for teaching it . 'I feel sorry for her mother', says my Mum. I reassure her that I'll never write such a book. And we fall to wondering if great writers are always pretty unpleasant or difficult to live with - do you have to be self-centred, self-obsessed and put your writing first in order to produce great work? We can list plenty of great writers who'd have been hell to live with - Tolstoy, Dickens, Joyce, Woolf and Yeats popped up straight away - but who are the great but kind writers? They must exist, surely? George Eliot sounds pretty much OK to me. Who else? (Notice I'm not mentioning living writers as I've no intention of guessing which are decent people to know and which aren't - I'll wait for the safe distance of history.)
Unoriginally, I suggested that producing really great work means putting the work first. Screaming children, sad spouses, no food on the table - nothing matters if you've got words in your head that you absolutely have to get down on paper.
That counts me out - I long ago accepted that screaming children came first. Spouses can be allowed to be sad for a short while - but not indefinitely - and I've always put dinner on the table, no matter what. And done the odd bit of cleaning, and quite a lot of work that helps pay bills.
As a younger writer I was inhibited by the fact that I'm not willing to write about my family, even in code (broke that one today, I guess) - it seemed to block off pretty much everything I was inspired to write about. A writing tutor told me that to be a writer you have to be able to write about whatever grabs you - you can't turn away if it's what you need to tell. And if what you need to say will hurt people close to you, then that's part of being a writer.
I stopped writing for quite a while after that.
My Mum reckons that my priorities mean I'll never be great writer. Thanks Mum! But she's probably right. I've had a novel swilling around in my head for several years now, but I know that writing it would wreck our family life - my head would be in the book, not with what's happening in the real world around me. So it's staying there in my head until I've fewer responsibilities. (Or maybe I'm the big-head and the world can get along just fine without me.)
In the meantime, short stories are perfect - ridiculously challenging, satisfying when everything comes out right after the struggle, and conveniently writeable in a week in the gaps between all the other things I have to do ... And the more I write them the more I come to love them as a form, and to realise that if one day I've produced a great body of short stories I'll be happy even if I never write the novel. It might take a while, that's all.
I've just discovered your blog today, and I'm glad I did. I can relate to you as a writer and mother, especially as one who also puts the family first. A long time ago, I never would have seen myself as such a maternal character, but life is tricky that way. My writing is more of a priority now that two of my children are a little older, but it's still difficult, even though my family is very supportive. I have recently found that writing short stories has helped me to keep my feet in the creative pool while still trying to say what it is I want to say in any given piece.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're sharing your journey. I'll be back.
Hi Catrin - it's good to hear from you. I've been absent doing family stuff for a couple of days, but they're all off doing their own thing for the rest of the day, and I finished a piece of work on Friday, so I'm relishing letting my mind wander through the story I'm planning with no diversions (except writing here). That's what I missed when the children were younger - hours of head space in which to let my thoughts stray.
ReplyDelete