Writer, Interrupted

In which nothing has changed since the 18th century

Please don’t interrupt her while she’s writing.

Someone recently asked me the hardest part about writing a novel. My answer: life. It is constantly interrupting with needs, like food and children that won’t be ignored, dogs that need to be walked, household crap that needs to be dealt with, etc, etc, etc and so on and so forth until deadlines come and go. 

But this is not news. 

This dilemma is centuries old. Consider this excerpt from a 18^th century novel by Charlotte Smith titled The Banished Man. In it, our heroine Mrs. Denzil is an author trying to support her family. While she tries to spend the morning writing, she receives a note from a lawyer on behalf of Mr. Tough demanding the immediate payment of a debt of “sixty-two pounds, nine shillings and eleven-pence.” She says it is, “a precious recipe to animate the imagination and exalt the fancy!” My language upon such an occasion is less flowery and extremely unladylike.

From the novel: 

After a conference with Mr. Tough, she must write a tender dialogue between some damsel, whose perfections are even greater than those “which youthful poets fancy when they love,” and her hero, who, to the bravery and talents of Caesar, adds the gentleness of Sir Charles Grandison and the wit of Lovelace. But Mr. Tough’s conversation, his rude threats, and his boisterous remonstrances, have totally sunk her spirits; nor are they elevated by hearing that the small beer is almost out; that the pigs…have broke into the garden, rooted up the whole crop of peas, and not left her a single hyacinth or jonquil. 

Then the maid comes to tell her that the neighbors all have scarlet fever, and at least one child is dead, so Mrs. Denzil sends over her little stash of wine and carries on with her writing. 

The rest of the day is passed as before; her hero and her heroine are parted in agonies, or meet in delight, and she is employed in making the  most of either….

Then she must deal with the neighbors and her own family and so on and so forth until hopefully she meets her deadline. 

We may not get all the specific references here but I think we all get enough to know 18^th century writing women: they’re just like us!

PS: This is from a book I read in college called Women Writing About Money: Women’s Fiction in England 1790-1820 by Edward Copeland.