Forum / Significant Others and Your Work

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Sep 29, 07:29pm

  I'm curious...

  We hear about significant others of published writers whose support and/or input are integral in the growth of that writer, but we don't hear much at all about writers who have significant others who do not care much for their work and provide little to no input or cheerleading.

  Does anyone here have a significant other who falls into the latter category? If so, how does it feel, and how do you deal with it?

• 
  Dolemite

  Sep 29, 11:24pm

  "significant others who do not care much for their work and provide little to no input or cheerleading."

  Sounds like it's time for a midnight call to The Sleeper...set up a little meeting out at mile post 90...

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Sep 30, 03:09am

  What's The Sleeper?

  Looks like everyone has amazing, supportive other halves to carry them through their writing life.

• 
  Gary Hardaway

  Sep 30, 03:54am

  Indifference is good preparation. Move on.

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  Matt Potter

  Sep 30, 05:50am

  I sometimes read funny lines out to my partner, or ask him questions about words ... "What's a better word than 'capitulate' but I don't want to use 'give in'?" ... but that's about it.

  I don't want my partner involved too much. He doesn't read a lot but is happy that I am involved and busy ...

  I think it's lose / lose for partners. It's the old "Does my bum look big in this?" dilemma: damned if you do and damned if you don't. I don't always trust his taste anyway!

  Actually, living in a household with another writer would piss me off. It's like actors marrying actors: don't do it.

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Sep 30, 07:33pm

  Gary, that's excellent advice. Reactions from 9 out of 10 agents and publishers are indifference anyway. Learning to live with it is certainly a good thing.

  Matt, you've got some great points. I rarely get along with other writers beyond an acquaintance relationship myself. Most often because we're too shut away to ever really get to know each other. We're an odd lot.

• 
  M. F. Sullivan

  Oct 01, 12:00am

  Honestly, if I were to have a significant other, I would much rather have somebody completely uninvolved with my writing. My work is like a lover, anyway. Why would I want my significant other to approve of, provide input in or cheer on my relationship with my lover? Reading the finished piece and appreciating the accomplishment would be more than enough.

  Apathy is preferable. I'd already be asking them to share me with my writing, so why would I ask them to be involved in it on an input level?

• 
  RW Spryszak

  Oct 01, 04:45am

  I would have wanted the support when I was young and stupid. Sort of like a fantasy thing. Now that I'm old and pissed off I don't really give a shit what she thinks. About most things. The only stuff reflected back at me that I listen to is the voice of the editor I'm working with. Everybody else can just blow me.

• 
  M. F. Sullivan

  Oct 01, 09:51am

  I'd say I like the cut of your jib, RW, but I get the feeling you wouldn't give a rat's ass.

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Oct 01, 12:59pm

  Magda, great answer (first and second above)!

  The guideline I used to follow is: writer/poet partner whose work is different from my own (so not in direct competition), but that has not always panned out--competition creeps in, anyway, and starts to taint the purity of his interest in my produce. A supportive partner may not be a writer at all but have a reasonably keen interest in reading and/or books and/or other art forms.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Oct 01, 03:31pm

  I was at a reading last night and my partner said I was the best reader there. I thought I was too (!) but the other readers were quite bum, so it wasn't heard being best.

  But he said that without prompting, ad I know when he's bullshitting and when he's not.

  My partner was also there because he was worried I wasn't feeling well and shouldn't be driving. That's what a good partner does for someone who writes - the practical stuff, like cooking you dinner because the words are just flying through your fingers and buying you a new computer because you stuck your foot through your old one and sending hate mail to yet another agent who's rejected you and your work.

  You know, the other stuff.

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 03, 04:00am

  RW, you made me spit out my coffee. So well said, my good man.

  Ann, I wholly agree with that last point. A keen interest in at least the realm of our work is certainly appreciated.

  Matt, you're very luck to have a guy who does 'the other stuff' for you, but more importantly, knows when it's needed. Made me warm and fuzzy to read that.

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Oct 03, 01:31pm

  I've been reading this thread with great interest. And yes Matt--you DO have the best partner--he put up with how many meetings with cyber writing buddies throughout the world :^)

  My partner... he has a love-hate relationship with the idea of my writing. He is proud of me when good big things happen, but doesn't generally like the idea of me writing all the time. I think it is part resentment (I found what I want to do when I grow up), part competitive (he writes, too), part we have very different tastes when it comes to reading. So we don't share. I don't even really tell him when I get published, or tell him that much about what happens in my classes, in my writing life in general.

  It used to bother me, but I am pretty much okay with his distance. It is the way I create my own room in our relationship which is, otherwise, quite strong.

  And what about those of you with kids? A whole 'nother ball of wax. Peace...

• 
  James Claffey

  Oct 03, 02:26pm

  oh lord. i'm keeping it short. writers married to writers, recipe for competitive bliss! throw a kid in the loop, a dose of employment woes, a dash of post-partum, and the whole thing becomes one of ramsay's kitchen nightmares. i'm sure michael chabon and ayelet waldman know what i'm talking about? or dave eggers and vendela vida? much easier when both partners are rocking the free world, but when the staple diet is agent fuck-off pie and no-time sorbet, it's a different world. there's not a word of anything i've written this year that was written at home. not a word. did i say short? this has descended into rant mode. what am i trying to say? choose a partner who's a zoo-keeper, or an E.R. doctor, but choose wisely. or, choose for love and simply deal with the writing issues that are bound to come up if you're both creative types.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Oct 03, 05:36pm

  I guess I'm lucky. My wife, MaryAnne Kolton, is a writer, bu we don't ever compete. Our writing, I suppose, is dissimilar enough that it doesn't matter. We are, though, mutually supportive. Most writers could use the kind of support that doesn't judge, but provides a necessary, even biased validation.

  There are enough critics and snarks abroad in the world, so it helps to have someone around who can answer the perennial question, "Why do I bother with this &%$#@^*%# stuff?"

  You can catch her blog with links to her work at:

  http://maryannekolton.blogspot.com/

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Oct 03, 05:37pm

  bu-bu-but

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Oct 03, 06:10pm

  Now THAT'S support, Sir Jim!

  On rethinking my response, I conclude also that my husband's professional life for the better part of 3 years has been absolutely horrendous (through no fault of his own). He is a Unitarian Universalist minister who lost his church due to a handful of petty, contentious, individuals who look like humans but who, are in fact, another genus entirely.

  So it is difficult for him to focus and even appreciate a lot of the writing stuff.

  that said, he IS enjoying the excerpts I share with him from my novel-in-progress: THE MINISTER'S WIFE. Call it a cheap form of therapy :^) Peace...

• 
  Gloria Garfunkel

  Oct 04, 11:24am

  Highly supportive, but I always get the question first "Is it one of your morbid ones or your funny ones" and it will depend on his mood.

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Oct 05, 01:38am

  Linda, I dated a UU pastor who could write better than I or most everyone; his writing specialty, as Meg Pokrass recently called that, was: "spiritual matters." He made a killer mixed salad and told me after reading my natal chart that I "should have been a literary critic." We had three dates. Then he took off for a f-t spot in Charleston instead of the temporary gig he'd expected to get in Vegas. The church hired a f-t pastoral fundraiser to raise their new, contemporary building, and I stopped going because I liked the quaint little church that housed them until then.

• 
  Roberto C. Garcia

  Oct 05, 05:04am

  This is a n awesome post. My wife can't deal with poetry but she loves fiction. The catch? We have totally different tastes in movies so odds are we don't like the same fiction. In some respects it's cool be amuse I have something that is all mine. Other times I could use a sounding board. Good thing we have Fictionaut!

• 
  Roberto C. Garcia

  Oct 05, 05:05am

  *because

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Oct 05, 07:26pm

  I've also been following this thread with interest. It hits some fairly sore spots. For the last 15 years, my partner has shown no interest in my writing. None. That said, when he finally introduced me to his family (after being together for 13 years), he introduced me as "a writer". I turned to him and said, "How would you know?"

  Last month when I published a book HE READ THE BOOK and he even started working on ways to promote the book. He even said it was funny--though "parts of it were hard to read". His first language isn't English.

  I've never felt more support from him.

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Oct 05, 07:52pm

  My one-time-now-deceased-ex-husband-and-general-allaround-fuckup once threw my typewriter down a flight of stairs. So I mainly wrote in secret, which was actually very good for my writing. Make lemonade, you know? And ditto on all the Fictionaut love. Many dittos!

• 
  Barry Basden

  Oct 05, 08:28pm

  re: My one-time-now-deceased-ex-husband-and-general-allaround-fuckup once threw my typewriter down a flight of stairs.

  Jane, Is this story out there somewhere? It's one I'd love to read...

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Oct 05, 08:39pm

  Ha! Barry, yes it's out there. I've thought about posting it here, but it's really long (like 8000 words long). It took me almost 25 years to find a place for it (that's kind of embarrassing to admit) but if you're interested, here's the link. The title is Penitente. Writing is the best revenge, yes?

  http://www.thedrillpress.com/tex/2006-08-01/tex-2006-08-01-penitente-jhammons-01.shtml

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 06, 03:12am

  Christopher, I imagine it must have been tough to bear for all those years. Probably still is, even with the support you're getting now. All you can do is roll with it, right?

  We work in an introverted profession (and 'life' as I call it -- the writing life) and live in an extroverted world. I've rarely received any support from anyone but those inclined to love literature and the process of creating it. I hope you've found more genuine support here, though.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Oct 06, 06:59am

  I don't like talking about my writing that much because it can be very boring for others, and you can't help but come off sounding like a bit of a wanker when you do so.

  The only thing less interesting to listen to is actors talking about acting.

  But I disagree with the introverted comment. I'm introverted when I'm sleeping ... and that's about it. I think some writers get off on that stuff - "I need to be alone so I can create!" and "Writing is such a lonely existence (sniff)" - but this forum alone is filled with Alpha +++ personalities who put paid to that Garboesque myth. Sometimes daily.

  You don't have to be introverted (meaning soulful, emotional introspective, sensitive, 'a thinker' - please, stop me when you've had enough clichés!) to be a writer. Similarly, being extroverted doesn't stop you from being a writer either. (And what about the many shades between 'introverted' and 'extroverted'?)

  To be a writer, you just have to write.

  Clichés about what (and who) makes a writer, and presumably a good one (whatever that means) are not especially useful, and just makes for a lot of precocious language and precious behaviour.

  Lecture over.

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 06, 05:43pm

  I figured someone might misunderstand my use of the word 'introverted' so I made sure to specify by adding the word 'profession'. I know several extroverted individuals who write well.

  Writing is an introverted profession, there's just no changing that. Unless you're connected to someone at the hip, we sit alone, we channel inward to invoke voices that don't otherwise exist, and we live in our heads to put forth good work.

  The only somewhat extroverted way in which someone could write that I can think of is journalistically, where the writer essentially puts facts together according to a general journalistic template while consorting with sources for quotes and such. Hence, it can be done in a room overcrowded with journalists and televisions monitoring news networks spanning the globe. In this case the writer turns outward (for quotes and summaries) as opposed to inward (for creating something out of nothing).

  If anyone is able to be an exception in this regard, I envy your ingenuity, because as much as I'd love to, I can't write my best work amid distractions.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Oct 06, 08:28pm

  My issue is there are many things written about writers and writing that seek to make them and the process mysterious and difficult and exclusive. And there's a lot of self-aggrandizing waffle, false humility, and self-justification disguised as literary talk. "I'm just a writer working away with the tools of my craft ..."

  I don't, for a minute however, think all writers are like that.

  But is it any wonder at times that partners don't want much to do with it?

  Not really ...

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 06, 09:35pm

  Oh I totally agree with you there, Matt. That old uncanny theory that words come out of the ether. It goes hand in hand with 'all good writers drink'. It's horseshit people keep up to make what we do seem inaccessible. It's work like any other creative endeavour.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Oct 07, 12:44am

  Horseshit! Ha, that made me laugh, because it's so true. Funny.

• 
  RW Spryszak

  Oct 07, 03:20am

  I thought it was "all writers drink."

  Well good or bad, I'm not giving up drinking for just any old populist construct. So there.

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Oct 07, 11:59am

  I would never expect my partner to be engaged in a discussion of my work, and I've never asked him to do so. And, yes, CSL, I am grateful for the support of this and other communities.

  It's only simple things like showing genuine happiness when I get something published, etc. that I expect from him--the same happiness I show when he has a good day at work.

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 12, 07:24pm

  If it weren't for such communities, I'd have fallen over with alcohol poisoning a long time ago.

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