Writing and Relationships

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now, but I seem to have a blog-writing block so here we are.

I have always wanted to ask a writer, who is married, or even dating, how the hell they do it. Particularly if they’re not dating another writer. Writers are notoriously full of baggage, we can’t help it. Some of us, of course more than others, but a lot of baggage comes with the hundreds of stories that roll around in our heads every day. And don’t even get me started on how most of us are control freaks.

I’ve heard (or rather read) that the best writers are eternally optimistic… where do you even get that from? I can’t remember the last time I knew an optimistic writer. I would argue we are more hopeful than optimistic, and that’s a big difference. We want to believe, for instance, that we’ll be able to do this forever, that we’ll be able to quit our day jobs and simply write novels until we’re old and gray. We tell ourselves that it’s not that unrealistic, but it’s hard to say we’re optimistic when that familiar dark side of our minds tell us it will never happen. That we’re just deluding ourselves. But maybe optimism means continuing in spite of all our self doubts (although I understood that to mean perseverance).

For all my fellow writers who are married, or dating, or in some form of relationship that doesn’t include living vicariously through your characters (as I myself do), how do you do it?