Why writing doesn't have to be a lonely struggle

Tough love life? Write a nicer one. Feeling old? Write yourself young… Authors Helen Grant and Lydia Syson explain why the writer’s life need not be miserable

Being an author is the most desirable job in Britain, according to a YouGov poll. Not so, responded Tim Lott. Writers are driven by demons, he wrote, the work is unimaginably hard – as complex as brain surgery, apparently – not to mention solitary, and fraught with rejection and professional envy. The meagre consolation is the “small legacy” we may leave behind us when we go. It’s a dismal prospect - enough to have us weeping over our keyboards, while taking nips from a bottle of absinthe.

Related: You think writing’s a dream job? It’s more like a horror film

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn’t even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.”

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