AUTHOR'S CORNER;

TEN REASONS TO BREAK UP WITH A WRITER!

As I glanced over at my husband yesterday, I realised with great fear and total dread, that I must be the luckiest woman alive.  WHY?  It is not because he is the richest man alive, or of the Brad Pitt variety.  He is not the most placid guy in the world, and he can pack a verbal punch in an argument!  Yes he does have his niggling annoying habits and sometimes he gets on my nerves! So why am I probably the luckiest woman on the planet?  

This is why....

The man is mostly always certainly frustrated in my presence! 

I don't blame him, he has good reason to be frustrated, he is the victim not me!  You see my poor husband happens to be one of life's poor souls who is married to a writer!  Yes people, you heard me, writer!  Those victims of literature (as I like to call them) have done nothing wrong and yet they have to suffer temperamental, loud, self obsessed spouses every waking moment of their sad little lives!  And lets face it, they did not sign up for any of this when they married us, they didn't know, nobody told them!  YES, THEY WERE TRICKED! 

For shortly after those unsuspecting souls said 'I do,' their entire lives took on a rather empty and on the outside kind of existence, never quite knowing where they stand from day to day and tiptoeing around their partner as if they were a time bomb, ready to go off.  And in keeping with my observation and fair assessment on how grateful I am to my beloved for staying with me for so long (even longer from his prospective) I have compiled a list as to why those poor souls are justified in leaving their writer spouse.

WARNING; THE FOLLOWING MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO FELLOW WRITERS.

1.   The Obsession with the story line.  

All your writer spouse thinks, breathes, and feels is the story.  They even interact better with their fictional characters than they do with you!  To them, you are the fiction!

2.     The mood swings. 

One minute they are  as happy as pie, the next they 

are pulling their own hair out and screaming obscenities at you, for no apparent reason.  Of course there is a reason, they probably feel frustrated about their work.

3.     The writer's block.

 Probably one of the worst syndrome a spouse will experience when dealing with a writer!  The BLOCK, is a steal wall which descends from nowhere and clamps down on everything.  In short, your spouse is not just blocked where it comes to his/her writing, no, they are blocked in all aspects of life.  They do not want to communicate, they can't be bothered to wash, shave, dress, and in severe cases, will not get out of bed.  They do not want to spend time, they do not care for television, and romance is OFF the menu!!  When your spouse is BLOCKED, your life is also blocked, and many a cold, lonely, darkened night you shall face!



4.     The need for legal and yet quite lethal and disgusting drugs!

Yes, you are married to a junkie!  they may not take hard drugs, they may not itch and skunk about the place; but they are definitely addicts.  They guzzle coffee by the barrel load, and they smoke (well most of them do, or they did) like a chimney!  Soon your home starts to resemble a private detective office from a fifties movie!







5.     They are very messy people.

 
Basically, tidy is not a word in a writer's vocabulary!  If you happen to be married to one, you need to hire a cleaner!

6.      They can go completely and utterly loony!

Basically all writers (yes all) have a degree of wacky insanity.  The danger lies is when that writer becomes punch drunk on his/her writing and starts to become totally irrational!  Before you know it your spouse is a raving lunatic who is jumping from one subject to another, shouting, laughing, crying.....don't worry, just give them a pill and put them to bed.






7.  Their perils (yes, I said perils) of wisdom!

All writers think that they are somewhat of an oracle, they are convinced that they and only they have the ability to see the world with insight and wisdom.  Oh God help you if ever they catch you unaware; the hours they'll spend giving you the benefit of their wisdom!

8.   Their obsession with the post.

Once your spouse has sent off his/her manuscript, there starts a new phase in which you will have to endure for the next THREE months; your spouse's unhealthy obsession with the post.  From then onwards, you will experience incidences where your spouse will run ahead of you to the front door when they hear the postman.  Where your spouse will fight you over letters in much the same way an over excited dog will bite and snarl at letters in you hand.

9.     Sleepless nights.

 Once the process of manuscript has been sent and publisher's response is awaited, you will then enter a whole new phase with your writer spouse; sleepless nights!  Whereby your lovely writer spouse will endeavour to keep you up all night by tossing and turning and huffing and puffing and asking silly questions such as 'Do you think the manuscript arrived safely?'  How the hell would you know?

10.     The fights....oh the fights!

You are frustrated, they are frustrated....You are wrong!!  of course you are, otherwise that will make your wonderful writer spouse wrong and we can't have that, can we?  Your spouse will tell you that you lack understanding for their art, that you do not appreciate how hard they work and have no concept of what talent is.  You of course will retaliate and tell them that you perfectly understand their arty farty ways and wish that you  could have somebody to support you whilst you messed about with a 'book'  and no, they  do not work hard at all!  

Oh dear!