Ruby Soames's Blog - Posts Tagged "dreams"
Somehow that novel has to get written...
‘We’re all going to die twice,’ Martin Amis said in a recent interview in the Telegraph. ‘We’re going to die as everyone dies, but before that our talent is going to die. There are no exceptions…’
Whether enough exceptions can discredit Amis’ pronouncement, it certainly put the s*** up me. Just like the other day when a friend of mine who's been Head of Art at a school for many years told me he was retiring this summer. ‘Great! You can finally get back to your painting!’ This has been the running theme of our friendship – my desire to write novels, his dream of an exhibition and all the crap we do for money which gets in the way. But he hung his head. ‘It’s a nice idea, but no,’ he said, ‘it’s too late. I should’ve done it when I was young but then we married, we had to buy a home, then came the kids, more responsibilities at work and now? Maybe.But as a hobby.’
Whenever I talk at book groups, do readings/signings, the question that so many people ask me isn't about my book but about the writing of it: ‘How do you find the time?’ and ‘Where do you get the discipline from?’ The answer to the first is: I use the time when I should be sleeping, and for the other: Fear.
I have a two jobs, two kids, two animals - thankfully only one husband - however, he works mostly at home. Adding to this, now that I’ve published a novel, I spend a significant amount of time marketing, promoting and keeping track of it. And I need a calm, tidy and ordered environment in which to work.
There’s only one solution for me. I have to get up at 5h00 in the morning.
This is the only way I get an hour, maybe an hour and a half, writing before leaving for the school run at 7h30 and off to work. Sometimes at night if I'm still conscious and not weighed down by admin, I can steal some more time.
It’s no way long enough or ideal, but that’s the reality.
I'm grumpy and tired all day, when others are waking up and having a coffee I'm starving for lunch and a siesta. I'm a lousy friend and an irascible mother - and an 'unpleasant wife' - adds my husband reading this over my shoulder - but the fear of never doing it and that Time Is Running Out keeps me going. This is really what I want to do and the novel won’t get written if I don’t write it.
There's been a lot of dispute about whether or not the author dies twice, but we can be sure the other half of Amis' statement is undeniably true.
Whether enough exceptions can discredit Amis’ pronouncement, it certainly put the s*** up me. Just like the other day when a friend of mine who's been Head of Art at a school for many years told me he was retiring this summer. ‘Great! You can finally get back to your painting!’ This has been the running theme of our friendship – my desire to write novels, his dream of an exhibition and all the crap we do for money which gets in the way. But he hung his head. ‘It’s a nice idea, but no,’ he said, ‘it’s too late. I should’ve done it when I was young but then we married, we had to buy a home, then came the kids, more responsibilities at work and now? Maybe.But as a hobby.’
Whenever I talk at book groups, do readings/signings, the question that so many people ask me isn't about my book but about the writing of it: ‘How do you find the time?’ and ‘Where do you get the discipline from?’ The answer to the first is: I use the time when I should be sleeping, and for the other: Fear.
I have a two jobs, two kids, two animals - thankfully only one husband - however, he works mostly at home. Adding to this, now that I’ve published a novel, I spend a significant amount of time marketing, promoting and keeping track of it. And I need a calm, tidy and ordered environment in which to work.
There’s only one solution for me. I have to get up at 5h00 in the morning.
This is the only way I get an hour, maybe an hour and a half, writing before leaving for the school run at 7h30 and off to work. Sometimes at night if I'm still conscious and not weighed down by admin, I can steal some more time.
It’s no way long enough or ideal, but that’s the reality.
I'm grumpy and tired all day, when others are waking up and having a coffee I'm starving for lunch and a siesta. I'm a lousy friend and an irascible mother - and an 'unpleasant wife' - adds my husband reading this over my shoulder - but the fear of never doing it and that Time Is Running Out keeps me going. This is really what I want to do and the novel won’t get written if I don’t write it.
There's been a lot of dispute about whether or not the author dies twice, but we can be sure the other half of Amis' statement is undeniably true.
