It’s not often I read an article online and sit and nod sagely at almost every line. But while Googling for the exact wording of the famous Virginia Woolf quote – “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” – I found this meandering muse on ‘creative time’ from David Boucher.
It’s a light, fun read and well worth it, looking at how different writers throughout history have managed their ‘work time’ – a subject I’m thinking lots about at the moment as I try to juggle an ungodly number of projects at once, very few of which actually pay any money in the short term. Today has been a case in point. I have five or six features all on the precipice of being finished, and yet only managed to actually get one done in between the phone calls, the emails, the essential news catching up, swimming lessons and so on.
I think the only example Boucher misses is the famous one of JG Ballard, who wrote prolifically while a single father of three, and never once neglected his children (read this outstanding obituary by his daughter and try not to feel a bit of shame for ever having felt you couldn’t juggle family and work well).