I speak from experience. My first wife about forty years ago, hated the time I spent at the typewriter. She believed this was time wasted, and made no secret about her opinion. My second wife of thirty-five years gave me full support, and wanting to read my WIP would continually ask, "Have you finished that chapter yet?" In my opinion, you need at least partial support, or your writing efforts will be stressful.
My husband is very supportive. He's taken the girls to the park so I can have some quiet time if I need to finish some vital part or do an important revision. Tomorrow he was going to go into work during the day for a bit, but is now going to go in at night so I can finish polishing up my query letter and synopsis for a submissions deadline on Sunday. Meanwhile he'll keep our kids out of my hair if need be. I do want to note that my kids do come before my writing. Most of my writing is done when my oldest is at school and my toddler napping. I'm lucky that my mother in law takes the youngest one day a week so I get a bit of a break. Of course I plan everything out around that one day a week so all I do is write on that day. At night I'm way too tired to do any writing, so that's our time to hang out.
If your significant other is not supportive of your interests and aspirations, your writing is the least of your relationship problems. Better to know sooner than later.
As soon as "I" becomes "we", a fundamental change has taken place. Yes, your significant other needs to be supportive of your writing, or music, or photography, or bird-watching, or whatever else you do for self-fulfillment. At the same time, you need to make sure that your quest for self-fulfillment does not push your significant other to the side. Each couple makes their own rules on something like this, but I think each person has a point beyond which they can't be pushed without placing the relationship in peril.
Well, my husband is an over the road truck driver and we don't have any kids. So, this gives me a lot of time for my writing. However, my husband's views on my writing varies day by day. He is all for it if i tell him im writing he expects it done the next day, but any longer than that he figures it's time wasted. So, even though he knows im writing, i try not to talk to him about it because he just demeans it. He thinks work should be done in a day and if it cant be done in a day then its not work. So, in this respect, no, i guess i do not have his support.
My roomie originally wasn't very supportive, because he wanted me to work with him on his electronics projects. One day I took him out to dinner and laid it on the line: Writing is very important to me, and I'll appreciate it if he supports me in it. If he couldn't see his way clear to doing that, we'd go our separate ways. He's been supportive ever since. Not to the point of reading my work avidly and praising it to the skies, but to the point of respecting the time I spend on it, and even respecting the dedication I have to it. It's enough. But if I ever start publishing, I'll get more!
Yes, my bottle of rum supports everything I do. *cries* Ahem...sorry. But I agree, an unsupportive partner could be quite a thorn in your side, at least emotionally. Then again, maybe the lack of support could frustrate you to the point where you write something amazing in order change that person's mind.
Yes, I learned the hard way this is common. As noted in my OP, first wife really--I mean really--hated my time on the typewriter. That was not the reason for our eventual divorce, but it did add a bit of strain. I was taking night college courses, and she supported that, knowing it would increase any potential for future upward mobility. I was surprised to learn from other evening class students that their "others" were often not supportive at all, regardless of the courses.
My boyfriend supports my writing more than I support myself sometimes. I can find it incredibly hard to share what I have written with him, but what he HAS read he says is wonderful. He encourages me to write every day and I love him for that. I don't think I would be writing as much, if at all, without a supportive partner.
My wife tended to snigger whenever I tried to sit and write - even sit and read my ebook. She did not openly say anything. I gave her the feedback that I found this behaviour very upsetting. I was not asking her to take an active part in my hobby - like actually read my work - but I asked her to at least respect the little time I gave to writing. Since that 'heart to heart' she has stopped sniggering. With a full time job and three kids under 10 years old in the house actually getting time to write is difficult so I guess I will tinker away when I get the odd half hour.
I'm right there with you KimFrei. My husband doesn't think I write enough (and he's right) but I also don't like to share what I do write most of the time.
He's extremely supportive. He won't praise me just because it's my work, he'll tell me if something's bad, but he makes it clear that he thinks I'm a very talented writer. He doesn't like reading, doesn't enjoy fantasy (and I'm writing fantasy), and in fact English is his second language, and yet if I wanted to share something I've written, he will always read it or listen to me read it out to him. I know he gets bored listening to me, but he will never say so, he won't even look like he's bored - he will listen patiently, because he knows it's important to me. And in fact, when he knows I haven't been writing for a while, he gets annoyed with me and tells me to get writing He loves his sleep, and he can't function for the whole next day if he doesn't get enough sleep, and sometimes he would stay up just so I can finish some more writing. He's just a complete treasure and the kindest man I know. So yeah, I do have his support And it works well anyway because he's more of an introvert than me and needs a lot more alone time, so the fact that my two favourite hobbies are reading and writing works out perfectly He also often has laptops he needs to fix, and it's nice to work in the same room in each other's presence. Michelle - how on earth could something not be work if it's not finished in a single day? Surely the faster something's finished, the less effort it takes, and therefore, the less it counts as work?
Michelle - you could tell your husband ( gently ) that nothing really creative can be finished in a day ( short stories aside ) that buildings, babies, gardens all take time to build, grow and form. And the word work actually comes from the German - to do , action and shouldn't be confused with labor - which stems from pain, toil and hardship. You could also help to change his views on writing - if he's not a big reader, read some poetry or short stories aloud to him.
My wife is supportive of all my creative outlets & I in turn am supportive of her interests (she's not a creative individual) - if you don't appreciate what your significant other is into then your not into your partner... Her only misgiving is that my creative endeavors are not lucrative - LOL - yet, that being said... she knows that it is theraputic for me to get these crazy concepts out of my head...
yes and no. she thinks me "trying" to write is a good thing for me and is a good way for me to broaden my interest, but that i write stupid meaningless stuff ( science fiction). so she really has no interest in it and i think only ever read 2 or 3 pages. does not really bother me as she supports me going out hunting and doing other things a lot more actively. though it makes it hard to find people that review ( my social circle form work is not the reading type often) my girlfriend is working on a story herself. she wants it to be a great English piece of literature. guess that's what you get for studying English. idk man i learned the most from EMT school and bar tender school.
My other half is also respectful and encouraging, more so since my university tutors have been pressuring me to find a publisher asap. It has kind of given my work credence. I won't really let him read it, though. This is because, although both avid readers, we like very different genres. He is an out and out sci-fi nut, and I am more of a historical saga/classical gal, although I also love reading good quality children's lit. Somehow, I think our ideas about what constitutes good writing differs.
