My little essay on working hard as a writer brought me this query from L. Jonas…
I read what you wrote about how writing can be hard work. Do you have any tips for how to cope with how hard that work can be? I'm especially thinking of the alone part of it, of feeling alone and lonely for so many hours. I can't write with someone else in the room but I also can't stand being alone for long stretches of time. Any suggestions?
Yeah: Learn and appreciate the difference between being alone and being lonely. Those don't have to be the same thing. When I spend all day and/or all night writing something with no one else around, I don't feel disconnected from the rest of the world. I'm just not around anyone else. And I often take a break to talk to friends or to go somewhere to be around other people. I doubt I'll do this much in the future but for a while, I'd go to Las Vegas for a few days, hole up in my room and just pound away on the laptop.
The great thing about doing this was, first and foremost, I could set my own hours — write all night, sleep all day if I liked. Eat when I felt like it and what I wanted to eat. Secondly, if someone phoned and I wasn't in the mood for a long chat, all I had to say was "I'm out of town" and they didn't expect one.
If I wanted something to eat and/or to be around people, I just had to get into the elevator and go downstairs. There was always someplace open to get a meal, always someone performing to watch for a while. I find it very easy in that city to strike up a conversation with strangers. And then, when I feel I'm nudging myself to get back to work, I just head back up to my room with the perpetual "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and I'm as alone as I want to be. It's like turning the outside world on when you want it, turning it off when you don't.
Maybe I'm okay with the "alone" part of my vocation because I was an only child. No brothers, no sisters. I always had my own room filled with plenty of things (like comic books) with which I could entertain myself. I was also a kid who skipped grades in school and that can make you very, very alone at Recess or Lunch. But I came to like it in a way, and I think it had a lot to do with me becoming a writer. I read a lot and spent a lot of time making up my own little stories just for me.
I keep getting back to that movie line I quoted in the earlier piece: "This is the life we have chosen for ourselves." No one is forced to become a writer. There's nothing keeping me in the profession other than (a) I enjoy it and (b) I have no real aptitude for anything else.
I have written with partners and I've also written in "writers' rooms" amidst a whole gang of writers. Both have their benefits, especially when you're collaborating with someone you can learn from. I still felt the need to also write something on my own…at my own pace…and to my own satisfaction. And I never feel lonely. I just feel like the rest of the world is in the next room until I finish my script or come to a natural stopping point for now.
