On writing and what we give up

There have been a few posts floating around this week, notably those by Jay Lake and Shannon Page, about what these writers have found necessary to give up in order to pursue their writing careers.  In Jay’s case, and the case of many of the commenters on his post, the major sacrifice has been television.

I’m not criticising Jay – far from it, and how could you, given the success that he’s had?  He’s found what works for him, crazy schedule and all (and I seriously envy his ability to work well on little sleep every night).  I just find it interesting to see what people have given up (or perceive that they need to give up, in some cases) in order to be a successful writer.

We all need to make sacrifices in order to pursue the things that we love.  For some, it’s not being anal about the state of the house.  For others, it’s socialising, and for others still, it’s media.

It’s gotten me thinking – have I really given anything up?  I’m in a different position to many in that I can’t work a traditional eight-hour day at any job, writing or otherwise, due to health issues.  But as well as my writing, I still watch television and movies, I game a bit, I read a lot.

Television.  Like I said, I do watch a fair bit of it.  I love spending the evenings with my husband watching shows and movies.  I find that I learn a lot about characterisation and narrative from both.  Sure, a lot of it doesn’t translate perfectly to the written word, but I still think that there’s a lot to be learned.  And yes, I do still watch a fair bit of fluff, for pure entertainment’s sake – I need to shut off my brain sometimes, and for me, trash TV is a good way.

Books, I could never give up.  Yes, again, I could probably cut down on the amount of comfort reading (trash, again!) that I do – but even reading bad books can be a lesson, I’ve found.

So, have I given up anything?  I don’t work a day job, unlike most writers, but that was given up for other reasons.  If I didn’t have health issues, likely I’d still be working a day job of some kind and writing in my spare time.  Things would be very different then, and I would probably be forced to give up some of the things that I’m still able to do.

I don’t socialise a lot.  On weekends, yes, but weeknight and weekday socialisation is a very rare thing for me.  I do tend to neglect the garden more than I should.  I go through phases where I don’t exercise as much as I should (very bad, this one) and also through phases of not eating as well as I should.  I don’t have a lot of other hobbies these days, either – pretty much all of my good hours in a day are taken up by something to do with the written word.

And of course, as I keep saying, this is all going to get very interesting in a few month’s time.  If I remember (when I have my brain to myself again), I’ll keep on posting on this topic then.

And also, as we all know, my process is not yours.  Jay Lake’s process is no one’s but his.  We all need to figure out what works for us.

So, what have you given up?  What are you willing to sacrifice?

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.