Writer-Marriages

[rolanni]

Many thanks to everyone who offered congratulations on our anniversary. In view of our mutual promise of "twenty-four more," we celebrated by buying a stove. The appliance that came with the house has been for some time actively dangerous, and we'd been putting off buying a new one until various tangles got un-. However, it transpires that Home Despot was offering a sizable discount and no payments/no interest until January 2006, so our new stove will be arriving on the 17th, assuming we can get the propane company motivated to come out and unhook the old one.

On the question of writer-marriages. Yesterday, msagara said, "Given that I'm a writer, I've always admired writer-marriages; I'm not sure I could keep one together..."

Now, it happens that I have a very difficult time imagining being married to someone who wasn't a writer. Back before the rocks cooled, I dated non-writers, and the degree with which they mostly Didn't Get the whole writing thing sooner or later came to be a large problem in the relationship (this can also, of course, be written as "...the degree to which I mostly Didn't Get the whole not-being-a-writer thing..." *g*). kinzel's first wife -- a non-writer, but otherwise a perfectly nice woman, and a great reader -- absolutely failed to understand the writing thing, though I believe she wished to be supportive.

So, those writers who are married to folks who aren't writers -- how do you keep the marriage working, and the lines of communication open, given the weirdnesses of creativity?

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Creativity is weird? I don't parse it as any stranger than any obsession, really... and most people have at least one obsession. :)

I feel great relief to have a husband who understands that my backbrain uses up so much of my processing power that the forebrain needs constant reminds to turn off stoves, check to make sure doors are locked, and buy holiday gifts. ;)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Like haikujaguar I found me a guy who not only understood the writer mentality (unlike most of my boyfriends, who acted like I'd crapped on the rug, and who insisted I keep it well out of sight and never talk about it) but who would be understanding when I inadervently check out of reality. I can't help that. It made me anxious for years, because my dad used to slap me across the face if he saw me doing it. (i hung out in my room a lot--get away from the cig smoke, too) But instinct said that two people doing that would not be good parents, might endanger a kid, and I wanted to have a family.

I was also afraid of the competition thing I saw in some writer relationships during my twenties--none of which worked out longrun. But looking back, I can see that was a maturity thing. If it hadn't been that, it might have been something else: I know several writer pairs who have longterm relationships.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

But instinct said that two people doing that would not be good parents, might endanger a kid, and I wanted to have a family.

Not to mention the uncertainty of income and health insurance, if one or both writer-parents are full-time. Kids need a mite more stability in their lives...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Creativity is weird?

Among some groups -- yeah, creativity is weird. I grew up in circumstances similiar to sartorias ... How to put this politely? Ah: Blue collar family where creativity not only wasn't valued, but was seen as a Threat to the viability of the family and the authority of the parents. The various remedies for the condition were ...distasteful... and as we see, not necessarily effective *g*

I feel great relief to have a husband who understands that my backbrain uses up so much of my processing power that the forebrain needs constant reminds

This is lovely. We run on lists for things like birthdays, holidays, taking books back to the library. And, back when I was living alone in an apartment with an electric stove, which I was always forgetting to turn off, I hung a sign over it: TURN THE BURNER OFF.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*eyes typos in her original message ruefully* And that after having come from a two hour session of revision. I hope I was more attentive to the manuscript than I was to my comment. o_O

I now grok the weird creativity thing. My parents were nowhere near so oppressive, though they made it clear to me when I was young that they expected me to get a "real job" that could put "bread on the table."

After I graduated from college and they finally read some of what I was working on and looked at my art, they came back to me and said, "We were wrong. This is what you should be doing, and we hope you get to do it for a living." One of the nicest moments ever. :)


Lists are KING. I don't know what I'd do with lists, signs, and lists of lists. And signs pointing to other signs. And calendars, and notepads and post-its....

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Writer married to a non-writer? Well, the old house is big enough that we're used to not seeing each other for days at a time . . . .

More seriously, Milady Wife _understands_ writing, even if she doesn't do it. And she's a good reader, even if her tastes run to less . . . tension in her reading. Heyer, for example. So she helps a lot when I get to revisions.

I never wondered much about writer married to writer, if they keep their work separate. I _do_ wonder how you guys do the collaboration thing and stay together, because I've run into too many creative tensions on design teams in architecture.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I never wondered much about writer married to writer, if they keep their work separate. I _do_ wonder how you guys do the collaboration thing and stay together,

Now see, I was going to offer up the idea that collaboration put less strain on the marriage, because we're both committed to the same project.

I've seen writer-couples who scrupulously kept their work separate crack up bad. One partner is selling (at the moment) and the other isn't -- big strain right there. One partner gets critical acclaim and wins awards while the other partner's work is dismissed as "pot boilers" or "mere space opera" -- another biggie. One partner has been kissed by the Muse this week and can't write fast enough while the other is wrestling giants for every word -- lotsa strain, there.

If our work isn't selling -- which it didn't for a long, long time -- we can console each other without the consolee thinking, in the dusty back corners of their soul where we're all ungrateful pigs -- "Yah. Easy for you to say." If our work is dismissed as "mere space opera," well, um -- it is space opera, and that's what we're committed to writing. If one of us is blocked, or sick, or out of ideas, she can hand the book off to the other partner to knock around awhile.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I was just extrapolating, based on the tension I've seen in design project teams. One creative type pulling in one direction, another at 180 degrees, a third questioning the basic design program....

Watching from the outside, I guess you guys must have sorted all that baggage out a long time ago. Steve's never killed off any of your favorite characters?

Which one of you vetoed writing a clutch turtle novel? (That last from my wife. She wants.)

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Don't know if Rolanni is answering this -- but I think we *both* feel that a clutch-only novel is beyond our current skill.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, Neither one of us can figure out how to write it. Which amounts to the same thing.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Steve's never killed off any of your favorite characters?

I'm the one who's most likely to be killing off characters *g*. He has, in fact, resurrected characters that I'd definitely killed, on the basis that We'd Need Them Later. He was right, we did.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I don't talk to him about writing except in general terms. He's an avid reader, but he has ideas about what process Should Be that don't match my process. He is baffled and maddened by the fact that I don't outline. (I'm a tech writer by day; I don't outline there, either.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

He is baffled and maddened by the fact that I don't outline. (I'm a tech writer by day; I don't outline there, either.)

I don't outline either. I find the result worth the mess. ...which I have to keep reminding myself of, when I'm in the midst of the mess...

[moon-happy.livejournal.com]

Although he's not a writer, for the first seven years of my budding career, he, too, was self-employed and worked out of the home. The kids were young and learned to not interrupt while we were working (though both of us will tell you kids can and did pull us into there here and now faster than anything.) When training kids, one must provide good example. Beyond those seven years, the work habits continued, though by then day jobs were also involved. Kids are grown; we look back and believe we were just lucky to be home during their critical growing up years. (Poor boys; if one parent didn't catch their foibles, the other did, for we were both ALWAYS around.) It's quite possible we were just lucky with regard to our careers, too. We certainly weren't smart enough to plan it back then. Might be now, though. *Grin*

[sraun]

There are a number of long-term writer/non-writer couples here in Minneapolis - dd_b & pameladean, mrissa and SO, joel_rosenberg and SO, and pegkerr and SO. I wonder if part of the problem you have noticed is maturity related, as mentioned in one of the other comments?

Irene is trying to be a writer, and I'm trying to be supportive of it. Being supportive is helped by the fact that the creativity jags pale in comparison to some of her other problems (as she puts it, the Federal Government pays her to not screw up American business - she's on permanent disability for a variety of neurological problems).

[msagara.livejournal.com]

So, those writers who are married to folks who aren't writers -- how do you keep the marriage working, and the lines of communication open, given the weirdnesses of creativity?

I often think of my spouse as the grown-up <wry g>. I have some writer tics and foibles, and in general, his response to these are "I knew who you were when I married you, and if I had wanted a different marriage, I would have married someone else". This is helpful.

The communication lines, otoh, are never down. They're always open. He reads and comments on some of my work, but while he used to always be my first reader, he now reads only when I'm about to pitch the computer across the room and Give It All Up. Which would otherwise be called second third of the long novel syndrome, in this house. He doesn't underestand how I work, in the sense that he could work that make, but also understands that it is how I work; there's never any attempt to manage it.

I don't know. I know that I couldn't live with me, and he can, and I've often attributed that to his not being a writer, among other things.

[(Anonymous)]

My husband isn't a writer, but he is still just as abnormal as I. He restores antique [yes, as in vacuum tube!] radios and furniture.

It sometimes gets a bit frustrating when I'm trying to work [read, play Spider Solitaire or stare off into space while working a thread in my head] and he rushes in to explain how he managed to troubleshoot the IF stage of some 1935 radio with an intermittent problem [see, honey, I DO listen to you sometimes!], but it works somehow.