Blog: The Guilt Factor

On April 9th, I wrote about Writing in the Face of Real Life, but there is something very important I forgot to address. The guilt factor.

Face it. When we go to visit the family for the holidays or other important events (weddings, funerals, birthday parties of the family’s Grand Dame), there’s nothing worse than the scathing looks writers get for stealing a few moments for ourselves. Family time is supposed to be family time. When you commit to being part of an event, you are supposed to be part of the event and not wander off to tinker at your keyboard. Right?

Um, wrong.

For some reason, the myth that writers can produce without actually writing seems to persist even in the face of contrary evidence. You know that you have to work at writing. I know that we have to work at writing. But family and friends? If it’s 5:00, you’re done working for the day and should come out for that after-office hours-drink and spend all night at the bar (the only time you may have for writing). If you don’t work during the day, then it’s all about “you don’t work, so shouldn’t you have all the free time in the world to do stuff with us?” And then, you have the holiday sneak-aways, in which Aunt Betty and Uncle Sirus are going to tut-tut at you when they find you hiding inside the attic, hammering away on your laptop, instead of partaking in Thanksgiving day snackage and discussing the football game while waiting for the Big Meal.

If this is your life, ask this question: Does my family know I’m a writer?

Because if they do, and you’re still getting this behavior, it’s obvious they don’t understand what this means. I do get it. It’s really hard when you live in the same city as your immediate family. You’re in the middle of writing the epic end-all-be-all of manuscripts, and you get a phone call from Mom or Dad or Best Friend saying “I need you NOW.” There’s nothing worse than letting your family or friends guilt trip you into walking away from your work, except, perhaps, letting them think that you can write “some other time.”

Every writer needs a break, to step away from the keyboard and let the brain rest, to have some fun. Yet, you should not let this fact stop you from refusing to go out when it is interfering with your work. Writers only get paid for what we produce. If we stop producing, even for a moment, that is a moment you’re not going to get paid for. Do the math. How many words do you write in an hour? 500? At the pro rate of 5 cents a word, you’re making $25.00 an hour. So, every hour you don’t work, that’s $25.00 less you could be getting paid. But real life is real life, and it’s going to be sitting there, guilting you into paying attention to other things.

Family doesn’t go away. Neither does guilt. At some point, though, if you are serious about your writing career, you have to make the choice. You have to tell the friends and family that you are doing your day job (or second job) and that you’d be happy to come to the dinner table when the turkey is done, but now you need to concentrate on work. Or that you’d be happy to schedule time with them on the weekend or Friday night, but tonight, you have other projects that you have to finish. Don’t be rude. Just be firm. Refuse the guilt. Tell everyone the rules around The Event (I will spend X hours writing and can’t be bothered) and make compromises (if you leave me alone from 9 a.m. to noon, I will gossip or help out in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon). Set yourself a goal, and set a goal for everyone else. Train them in the art of being writer family support. If they think they are helping create the next Great American Novel, many of them will fall in line and let you write.

Both writing and real life require attention. Sometimes you have to give up on the writing to focus on real life, and sometimes you can fit real life around your writing. All writers have to deal with the guilt factor. How we deal with it, though, sets the tone of our writing careers. Don’t let the guilt factor rule you. Be the writer you need to be, when you need to be it.