Do writers get time off? I’m just wondering, as I do every year, what the holiday season will bring. I currently have three projects in progress simultaneously, and at any given moment I’m working on one or all three of them. Will I be able to tear myself away to spend time with my family over the holidays?
I try. I always try. It’s always my intention to set my laptop aside and refrain from touching it, or even to check Facebook or my e-mail … but it never quite works out that way. When I’m in the middle of something, my brain is like a runaway train, hurtling down the track. I wake up in the middle of the night, wide awake, with ideas that I just HAVE to write down. I find myself designing covers for books I haven’t even written yet. I become obsessive. (I also have OCD, so when I say I become obsessive about something, I really become obsessive about it).
I feel sorry for my husband. During the Christmas season, he gets several days off work. Which is great, of course, but the trouble is that I don’t get to leave the office—I don’t have an office to leave. I don’t get to leave the workplace behind—every aspect of my environment is my workplace. For him, the minute he steps out of his work truck (he’s a courier), he mentally frees himself from his work. For me, I find such a task impossible. Thus, when he’s home for long periods of time, he often feels neglected, and I feel terrible for it.
I’ve tried to ignore the impulse to jot down notes, or to pen a line or two (or three, or four, or fifty), but my attempts inevitably result in failure. I wonder if this is just my OCD (a symptom of my asperger’s), or if other writers also struggle with this. I wonder how I would cope if I had children. I wonder how I would cope if I had other human beings (besides my husband) who demand my time and attention. I think I’d explode.
A few months ago, I was forced to leave a day job that I actually rather liked. It was just becoming too stressful to balance a full time job while writing, and also attending to family life. I was getting an average of four hours sleep a night, regularly taking caffeine pills, and my poor little guinea pigs were feeling unloved. I thought that, after I quit, I’d have all the time in the world. I imagined I’d be able to spend eight hours a day writing, and devote the rest of my time to my other responsibilities.
Alas, such was not the case. It seems the more free time I have, the less free time I have. I’m still only getting about five hours sleep a night (although I have weaned myself off caffeine pills), and I’m still having trouble making deadlines. How is this possible? My compulsion to write knows no bounds!
I suppose that’s good, in a way. It means that I’m capable of being very productive. Creatively, I’m alive. I’m excited and I’m enthusiastic. I’m eager to work at any given opportunity, and it fulfills me in a way that I can’t completely explain. However, it also makes me wonder. I wonder what sacrifices I’m going to have to make in my personal life in order to accommodate this obsession. I wonder what I’ll miss out on. I wonder what I’ll lose as a result of my single-mindedness.
The only thing I’ve never questioned is whether or not it’s worth it.
I don’t ever doubt that.
I need this.
Keira Michelle Telford is an award winning dystopian SF author from British Columbia, Canada.
