Very few people are able to support themselves financially through writing, so it seems to me that writing must be frequently relegated to the spaces real life leaves behind.
When I read Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own back in my teens, a fantasy of mine took shape and solidified. Since then, I have been desperate for a space – both physical and mental – that is mine alone and that I can retire to frequently. Instead, I hide in the bedroom of my shared flat, sit in cafes with snatched moments and stick the headphones in whenever I can.
These days writing is filling up the cracks and gaps in my time quite prolifically, but despite telling myself it doesn’t have to be this way, I always feel as though it’s consigned to the margins. That’s what makes me want to trash the day job, and god do I sometimes want to trash the day job!
But I do sometimes wonder if it’s not always such a bad thing. If by having writing as the thing I’m fighting to find time to do, it gets to be almost a treat. I doubt it would stay that way if I did it 24/7. Or maybe I’d find I enjoyed it even more. Who knows? Not me until I get brave or rich enough to try it!
Lynsey May 
I still crave that space to breath whenever I’m in a crowd for a significant amount of time:) I guess people who have “the need to write” also have “the need for space”.
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Oh god yeah, and “the need to be extremely anti-social so they can hide in their own heads” – or I do anyway 🙂
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You are so right Lynsey! Me and my hubby always console ourselves that when we toddle off to work, sometimes missing each other because of the strange hours, – we convince ourselves that it is all worth it because it pays for the good times. We live for the good times! If it was good times all the way – it wouldn’t be the same. There’s nothing like putting the feet up and doing what you really want to do. if you have a contrast, I think you do appreciate ‘me time’ more. I like the way you liken wrting to filling the cracks lol! Talk about ‘mind the gap’. Writing – the new polyfiller! reading between the lines (cracks) is good though – lots of interesting things lie between the lines – it’s that oh so cosy niche that can become a prison though. Lol – get me, waxing lyrical!
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hehe, for some reason ‘pollyfiller’ and ‘waxing’ gave me the image of someone sitting crouched on the toilet lid furiously scribbling their opus 🙂
Yeah, as much as it would technically be amazing to have all your time as ‘me time’ , I’ve seen too much of that time sending my friends too far the other way – I guess it’s all balance eh? I still think a three day minimum weekend could be workable though!
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