So You Want to Date a Writer? – 10 Things You Need to Know

So, you were out with a few friends a while ago, and met this interesting new woman. She said she was a writer, and that’s pretty cool, right? You read some, you’re not totally illiterate; in fact, kicking back in front of the fire with a good book rates fairly high on your feel-good scale. Especially if there’s pizza involved.

 But on the whole, you wonder about these artistic types, right? Before you book the U-Haul, here are a few things you might want to consider…

You’ve heard of the temperamental artist, right? No? Well, let me give you a heads up. Artists, and yes, that definitely includes writers, are temperamental. We live in our heads probably more than we live in the world, and it can be a pretty freaky weird place inside a writer’s head. You know the sorts of things that happen in books, right? Well, they happen in the writer’s head first.  And if we spent the day plotting how to get away with murder, we’re likely to be thinking about places to dump the body while we’re taking that romantic walk along the beach with you.
Because, you see, the trouble is that we writers think about writing all the time. Yes, I mean all the time. When we wake up in the morning? Check – a lot of our most inspired ideas come from our dreams. At the movies? Check – we’re secretly and scornfully making lists of all the plot holes. During sex? Well, we’d never admit to it, but yeah, there’s a little voice in our heads saying we should probably use this position in our next book. There’s this famous quote about writers – “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” (Eugene Lonesco)
And if, by your bad luck, you do question us about our ideal vacation, you’re going to be shocked to find that it doesn’t include you. I’m warning you – our dream vacation is two or more weeks alone in a secluded area, probably by the sea or high in the mountains, where we can think about writing twenty four hours a day. Put away those brochures and stick your suitcases back in the closet – you’re not invited.
So, the vacation is out, how about some good, old-fashioned socialising? Or not. Unless it’s meeting up with a bunch of other writers, most of us would probably choose to stay at home and read a good book. For this reason, it’s essential that you be an avid reader. We like to talk about books; we could talk about books for days on end. And if you really want to be special to us, you absolutely must read our own books. And preferably, take notes.
We writers are needy people. We’ll hand over our new manuscript to you as though passing a precious new-born child. We’ll expect you to sit down right there and then and read it. We don’t care if there’s laundry to be done, or your old mother needs a ride to the hospital because she broke her hip. Read the book. And while you’re reading the book, we’ll watch you, anxiously, to check that you laugh in the right places, wipe tears from your eyes in the right places, and if you do need a bathroom break, we’ll pounce on the manuscript to see where it got so boring that you could possibly have put it down, whatever the purported reason.
After you’ve waded your way through our latest masterpiece, we’ll sit you down, shine a strong light on your face, and proceed with the interrogation. For every question or hesitation you express about our work, we’ll have a pre-prepared augment on hand for rebuttal. Every one of which will start with “But…”said in the most childish whine you’ve ever heard. If you’ve a real criticism about the book, no matter how nicely you say it to us, be prepared to see us prostrate ourselves on the floor and beat at those boards with fists and feet. We writers are not good with criticism.
That’s after the book is written of course. You probably won’t have seen us for the several months before this glorious day. During the writing process, don’t bother phoning to remind us about that dinner at your parents – we’re too distracted to remember to change our underwear, let alone manage to dress up enough to impress future in-laws. In fact, unless we’ve christened a character after you, we’ll be lucky to remember your name.
Having staged an intervention and dragged us out of the house for our own good, be aware that you’ve now invited a child out for a stroll in the park and coffee afterwards. We’ll be so busy gawping at the world around us, and mentally describing exactly the sensation of sun on our skin and wind in our hair, that you’ll think we’ve regressed to the age of two when we start giggling and pouncing on stray leaves, only to exclaim how beautiful and incredibly interesting every detail of them is.
A week later, you’re likely to get a phone call from us, speaking in a high-pitched, and frightened voice about how the finger joints in our hands have swollen to three times their size from all the typing, and do you think they’ll need to be amputated, because quite frankly, if they have to be amputated, we don’t think we could cope not being able to type, and there’s no way we could change the way we do things, the books have to be typed or hand-written, that’s just the way it is. Perhaps your could type our farewell cruel world note for us?
The swelling will go down after two days of you applying ice packs and soothing our creased brow, but by that time, it is too late. We’ve realised our fragile mortality, and so frightened have we become of not being able to write all the books we need to in the puny amount of time left on this earth to us, that now we have writer’s block and no words at all will come. No matter what you do, we will languish, pyjama-clad, in front of our computers for the next month, drooping steadily further and further down over the keyboard.



Filed under: Writing Journal