There’s the computer thing. Chances are, if your best beloved is a
writer, you have a love/hate relationship with their laptop. If it’s
on, your sweetie is somewhere else, either working, or networking, or
blogging, or tweeting, or playing internet games and totally
pretending to be working.*
*Some of us, of course, are far too career-driven to ever do such a thing.
But it gets worse. Because even if you can drag them away from their
computer, they will still be working. You’re there, at dinner, or
settling down for the evening, or in the car, and find yourself
carrying on half a conversation, because your darling is staring into
the distance, composing imaginary dialogue.
Or staring at the couple at the table across the restaurant, wondering
which of them would make a better foot soldier, assassin or murder
victim.
When they do talk, it’s a babble of plot that only half makes sense,
and you have to nod and pay attention, because there may be questions
afterwards.
You come home to find jobs started but abandoned, because the new
chapter was “calling”.
Sometimes you come home to find your partner in tears because they had
to kill off XXX, and somehow your calm, objective comments about how
they “didn’t REALLY have to kill XXX off because he’s a fictional
character” don’t actually help, and might get something thrown at your
head.
This is not the only time you will find yourself having serious
conversations about people who don’t actually exist.
Sometimes they are up at 3am typing, and you don’t know why it can’t
wait until morning.
Ever been a touch impatient because your dearest can’t find a thing to
wear? Add ‘book launch’ to that equation, and you will be there for
hours. HOURS.
Then there’s the big question. The huge, life altering question. Do
you read their books? Do you read their manuscript drafts? What do
you say if you don’t like them? Awkward!!!
I’m sure that every job brings its own unique challenges home to the
family. But it’s always seemed to me that writing has a particular
brand of difficulties to be overcome - and a particular need for
patience on behalf of the non writer partner. There are two kinds of
jobs, after all - the one that follows you home from the office, and
the one that doesn’t. Writing never goes away! I have been extremely
lucky in that I have a partner who has one of those jobs that doesn’t
follow you home, and that he is incredibly understanding about the
fact that I have one which is constantly tangled around my neck.
When we first started going out, a zillion years ago (ooh, nearly
fifteen) I was in a rare non writing period of my life, which came to
a natural end six months or so later - at which point, he found
himself in a relationship with a writer entirely by accident. Luckily
for me, he got the hang of it very quickly, and has been supportive in
all senses of the word ever since.
He made me post the first manuscript, the one that changed everything,
although he hadn’t yet read it and had no idea if it was any good. He
paid the bills, year after year, supporting me through university as
well as my erratic writing career. He actually buys my books, in
multiple electronic forms, even though he is totally entitled to one
of my precious freebie copies. Oh, and he always wanted to hear about
whoever it is I killed off this week.
What else could I ask for?
Tansy Rayner Roberts is the
author of Power and Majesty (Creature Court Book One) and
The Shattered City (Creature Court Book Two, April 2011) with
Reign of Beasts (Creature Court Book Three, coming in
November 2011) hot on its tail. Her short story collection Love
and Romanpunk will be published as part of the Twelfth Planet
Press “Twelve Planets” series in May.
This post comes to you as part of Tansy’s Mighty Slapdash Blog Tour,
and comes with a cookie fragment of new release The Shattered City:
This is the thing I never told anyone about Raoul’s death: for
days afterwards, my dreams were full of him, and not just images of
him falling to his doom. I could hear his thoughts, a steady rattle
in the back of my head. Sometimes I even thought I could hear other
voices, other Seers, chattering away in there.
You understand why I kept this to myself.
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