Writing Is Often Difficult, So Is Living With A Writer. . . Or So I’ve Been Told

Living alone means being able to write without interruption.

It’s hard to explain to a non-writer what interruption does to concentration. The frustration of having found just the right word, the exact turn of phrase only to have it vanish into thin air because of an interruption.

My former husband — former largely because he didn’t understand about interruption — used to pop his head around my office door and tell me something. Anything. The toaster is on the blink. He hasn’t seen the cat for hours.

I’d give him a blank look meant to indicate I had loftier things on my mind. It wasn’t particularly effective, he still interrupted.

“It’s taken, what a minute, two minutes of your time,” he’d say during our inevitable arguments on the subject. “Just go back to work, I won’t bother you again.”

After these discussions, I’d feel pretentious and self-absorbed. It wasn’t as though I was working on some great literary masterpiece. My writing wasn’t exactly paying the bills. Couldn’t I be a little more tolerant? A little less precious?

I couldn’t. Neither of us were happy.

If you want companionship, he’d tell people, don’t marry a writer.

Living alone definitely means fewer interruptions — at least from other people. The irony is that when I am alone, I'm not necessarily more productive.

Mostly because I interrupt myself.

Especially when the writing progress slows down to a crawl. When stringing a couple of sentences together is akin to slogging through sludge. At such times (meaning almost every day) I turn to the refrigerator where help is sometimes available in the cheese drawer. Or in a forkful of leftovers. If that doesn’t work, I look on Amazon for things I don’t need and can’t afford. Or maybe check e-mail.

Or Google how hot it is in Saudia Arabia.

Or whether you can cook radishes. You can. They’re good. I think I have some. I’ll need a recipe. I find one. But I don’t have shallots or creme fraiche. Or, I discover, radishes.

An hour or more can go by like this. Focus? Concentration? No idea what those words even mean. Worse, I only have myself to blame.

But four years ago, I met someone who, despite my warnings, wanted to find out for himself whether it would be difficult to live with a writer.

And, despite my previous experience, I agreed to let him find out.

So how’s it going so far?

Well, we’ve discovered some basic differences

He reads instructions. I don’t. This can be tricky to defend.

Me: “I don’t know what’s wrong with . . .” (could be anything, probably a gadget.)

Him: “What do the instructions say?”

Me: “Uh . . .”

Him: “Where are the instructions?” He sighs heavily and empties my overflowing wastepaper basket. Experience has taught him that’s where they’re likely to be.

They are.

So that’s one of our differences. At last count, ten minutes ago, there were 9,452 others.

But, I think it’s working ok, our relationship, I mean. I'd ask him for confirmation, but he’s in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher (a man’s place, right?) and he’s playing his damn music so loud that he wouldn’t hear me even if I shouted at the top of my voice.

So I’ll answer for him . . .

“It’s working amazingly well,” he says lovingly. “She’s kind, patient never raises her voice, and always looks incredibly beautiful even when she’s just tumbled out of bed. And because I know she’s terribly busy writing her masterpiece that I think she started writing when she was ten years old, but which she assures me is almost finished, I would never, ever, interrupt her and, even if I did, she would just smile and listen patiently.”

OK, maybe a slight exaggeration, but I’d like to think that he doesn’t find me that difficult to live with.

I mean, I am trying.

He'd definitely agree with that.

When I joined Medium in November 2021, I’d intended to write about my life in France and the dubious rewards of being dragged kicking and screaming into the foreign country of old age . . . and that is what most of my stories are about.

Every so often though, I write about the painful and bitterly unrewarding life of a poverty-stricken and misunderstood writer and, occasionally, the little joys that come her way.

You can read some of the stories below, and if you are moved at all (but only lovingly and positively because she has a very fragile ego)please lavish praise and hundreds of claps.

Go on, bring a little sunshine into her day, she will be eternally grateful.

Here’s a little background about each of the poignant, yet eternally hopeful stories.

This first one struck a responsive chord with other writers. I’d had one of those slogging through mud days and I wanted to know if others had similar days. I knew they did, but I needed confirmation . . .

The next one didn’t do so well. While I might have wanted to write all night, I seemed to be in the minority. Even the picture of my old Smith Corona — bought with my first writing earnings — drew little response. Or maybe My Fair Lady has had her day.

The next one was inspired by another writer’s post — I couldn’t resist the question.

In the following story, no one seemed particularly interested in discovering what the inside of my head might look like. Maybe the image was too . . . off-putting. If you enjoy wine though, it might be worth a look. The story, I mean.

The next one is about how I learned to write a killer title . . .Unfortunately, I’ve yet to write the story. Ideas are always welcome.

Other writers answered the question I posed in this last story. Glad to know I’m not alone. . . except I might be slightly more on the jealous side, which I’m trying to work on.

So that’s it on my writing-related stories.

Now for the commercial.

Perhaps you’re a glutton for punishment? If so, you can also take me along on your walk, or wherever you’d like to go. Just press the listen button at the top of the story to hear it read aloud.