Life of an Author can be Boring for Family Members

Being the wife of an aspiring author can be boring at times.  Since my husband is working full time to provide for us while he writes his first book, his only writing time tends to be on the weekends - hence why it took him so long to write the first draft.  However, since the weekends are really our only time together because we both work full time during the week, we usually spend it in the office – him writing and me reading.  He sits at his computer for about 4 hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  That means that we cannot make any plans in the morning.  We also have to plan our weekends around those 4 hours each day – when do we plan to do yard work?  Grocery shopping?  Dinner with friends?  Take the dogs to swim?  Go to baseball games?  Movies?

I thought the life of a writer would be a little more exciting, but it really isn’t.  He gets very antsy sitting at a desk all day.  Sometimes he’ll get up to write on the whiteboard for a little while, which is where he writes certain things about the world.  But for the most part, he sits at his desk and types the entire time.  He has to have music playing softly in the background to help him focus – but depending on the type of music he is listening to that day I might not be able to read in there with him – some days its classical, some days a weird techno type.

I used to read or watch tv or do other things downstairs while he was writing.  But I started feeling…neglected – for lack of a better term.  I felt like I never saw him.  Obviously I know that this is something we just have to accept since right now he’s not making any money on his writing. And I certainly love him for the fact that he suffers through a 50 hour work week to provide for us even though I know he wants to write for a living.  But it’s hard not seeing your husband for very long.  So I decided I needed to at least be in the room with him, and then it’s not so bad.  Plus the chair in the office/library (we own a lot of books..) is much more comfortable than reading on my couch.

I’ve now decided to spend more time on my blog as well.  So I’m hoping that I can blog about how bored I am while he’s writing!  Just Kidding!  But I do seriously want to write more about this process and what it is like for him, but also as the family of an aspiring author.  What kinds of things do we have to do to get published?  Are we going to try for standard publishing by a publisher or try self-publishing?  How many edits does it need to go through before we start sending it out?  It’s such a more in depth process than I ever imagined – and there was so much that went into the process before he even started writing the story.