Is it really possible to work on a successful writing career as well as a successful relationship?
For me it seems that being in a relationship with someone who wants me around his place every night of the week to eat tortellini, play Goat Simulator and have sex is not conducive to my creativity.
Perhaps it would be if I was stronger willed, didn’t hate my day job as much and had more conviction in my ability to write good. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying all this to make you feel sorry for me, I’m saying this because I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one. I can’t be the only one to feel as though love and writing ambition are particularly hard to align, especially when some of the best writing ever written has been the result of major heartbreak, or, if not heartbreak, then at least mild cardiac agitation.
And the problem is, the real problem, is that my boyfriend’s got it sussed. Nothing can beat chilling out with someone you love and hooking up GTA to a 40-inch television. Especially not heading back to your real flat – the one you’re paying just under £500 a month for the privilege of renting – to lock yourself in your mouldy unslept-in bedroom to edit the manuscript of your currently unsellable novel away from the four incompetent university friends you’re sharing with, the ones who think a cauliflower-cheese sink blockage is something you’d like to come home to after work.
Rotting vegetable/blocked sink related anger is not something that many writers can channel into literary venom and nor, as it happens, is happiness and self-contentment. But I’m happier than I’ve been in years, doing the thing that we all do when we’re in a relationship; going to work, having a shit-to-mediocre day, and crawling into bed to eat ice cream and watch Louis Theroux documentaries with someone you also quite like to get naked with. And it strikes me that it’s this sort of transitory perfection that people strive their whole lives for, which makes it really hard to be firm about keeping some time free for writing.
Perhaps though, there comes a point in every relationship when you realize that there’s only so much naked lounging about you can do before it gets old and you both decide you need to focus more on your careers. Or maybe you just split up, who knows.
Either way, unless you want to wait until you’re 40 and alone before having some kind of literary success, you’re probably going to have to think of a happy middle ground. And, for me, this means sitting out of one or two Tekken tournaments, getting used to having someone reading my writing, and being prepared to prioritise my love of writing over my love of my guy for a least an hour each day.
