Do You Get Writer's Guilt?

 

It's ridiculous but I can't get it out of my head. Yesterday the gas man came over to do a routine check up on our boiler. I was hoping for a chatty man because I'd been home alone plotting a novel for over a week and was starting to hunger for human interaction. The gas man, however, was a quiet man.

 

I sat with my cork board slowly pinning post-it notes to it while he fiddled about with the gas reader. He declined my offer of a cup of tea.

 

As he finished off he said, 'Are you doing a course?'

'No, I'm plotting a novel,' I said. ' I'm a writer.'

The inevitable question came, 'What do you write?'

'Well, I've just written a romantic comedy.'

'Ah, rom coms,' he said knowingly, and then he uttered the words that would niggle at me for the rest of the day, 'a life of leisure then.'

 

I know I tried to justify myself. I said I did other jobs too. And as he slipped through the door I muttered incoherently that writing a hundred thousand words was not my idea of leisure. But it was too late. I was left feeling like I'd been smacked in the face, laughed at, belittled. I was a silly little girl, writing silly little stories, who spent her days relaxing while the rest of the world worked hard in the 'real' world.  

 

My mind kept going back to it, redrafting what I should have said. But he wouldn't have cared either way and why should he? I shouldn't care either, so, why does it bother me so much?

 

This morning, I decided it must be guilt. I'm one of those people that think if it doesn't hurt, you're probably not doing enough. I've always had a job, since I was a teenager. All the writing I ever did was done early in the morning before work, or in the evening. I was forever wishing I had more time. I felt like I was investing all my energy into some pointless job and giving the remains of myself to what I really wanted to do in life.

But I was disciplined because I wanted to be a writer so much, and I managed to finish a full-length novel, which I never did anything with, and later, after working on a blog for a long time, Shop Girl Diaries, which was published.

 

It's thanks to my husband's support that I now write full-time. It was him that suggested I take a year to just write. In that time I've often felt useless for not being able to contribute financially. At my lowest moments, Destiny's Child's song 'Independent Women', has played in my head, reminding me I didn't even buy my own notebook, let alone my own diamonds. But mostly, I've felt happy! Because what bliss it is to wake up to a whole day to write. For me, it's a dream come true.

 

I'm no longer a frustrated writer, which is not to say some days aren't hard going. But I love what I do. Since I've been writing full-time I've finished a new novel and at last got an agent. It is my job even if it doesn't feel like one.  

 

I suppose I felt guilty when Mr Gasman said I was living a life of leisure because I was enjoying myself, happy at my work. And what on earth is wrong with that?   

 

 

Lost the Plot

To my horror, my plot is turning to sand and falling through my fingers.

I need water to thicken it so I can make my castle.

But I appear to be in a desert surrounded by sand and wind and bad ideas.

The way I’m panicking it may as well be my own life falling apart.

I’m getting married next month which arouses little anxiety in comparison.

At least in my own life I’ve got the hero sorted!

Panicking is not going to help though and neither is a shot of something strong.

I need to calm down so I can see clearly.

I turn to a creative writing course book* for guidance and start to read the section on plotting.

It's not long before I read about my own first draft which is ‘shapeless’ and ‘fails to meet with {my} intentions.’

Apparently this is where 'many writers hang up their pens and give up’.

But I’m not going to do that.

I’ve grown to believe in my characters. My problem is I just don’t bloody know what to do with them.

I continue to read.

Joseph Heller took ten years to write Catch 22.

I’m not sure if that’s supposed to comfort me.

I can’t bear the thought of anything taking ten years. I’m from the facebook generation where every creation and reaction has to happen NOW!

Basically I’m looking for an immediate solution to my plot problem.

I’m looking for the secret.

Reading the guide calms me down.

It dawns on me that I should be telling a story, not writing a novel.

The thought takes a hold on me.

I think I see a camel. It might be a mirage but I’m excited enough to stand up and wave at it.

‘Plot is for readers more than writers,’ author Val Taylor writes. ‘Reader’s ask, ‘what happens?’ For a writer the question can only be answered when the novel is finished.’

Which means I'll know where I’m going when I get there.

*The Creative Writing Coursebook edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs

Photograph by Elizabeth Hacker