Sombre enemy?

The title of this blog of course comes from Cyril Connolly's assertion that "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall." (This was the man, incidentally, immortalised in my favourite Monty Python song "Eric the Half-a-Bee", as a mishearing of the words "semi-carnally"). Did he even have children? Frankly there are all manner of excuses not to write. (Earning a living, avoiding the housework, general boondoggling). My children aren't one of them. In fact, having children makes you see the world with fresh eyes. Yes, your time is no longer your own; yes, you are exhausted by the groundhog day like chores ... and yet, how much do you come to value your writing time? My 'day job' is running a house, family, and small business, but I know down in the basement lies the seed of my third book.

Last summer I was lucky enough to have help with the kids a couple of mornings a week. Just knowing I had those precious hours of writing time got me through the summer holidays. I was obscenely grateful to our wonderful sitter. Even the morning I emerged, blinking from the basement to find she had managed to paint the children, hound, and half the garden blue didn't phase me. It was a glorious summer, and I finished editing the book.

These days if I can't actually get down to the desk until everyone is bathed and in bed, I send notes and fragments scrawled on the back of shopping lists and envelopes sailing down the stairs into the darkness like I am waiting for an answer from some oracle. I think it was the great Annie Dillard who wrote on how quickly a manuscript turns feral if you don't write something, anything every day. Scribble those thoughts down, use a dictaphone - it's amazing how many times I have had an epiphany brushing my teeth or doing the school run, only to have lost that perfect sentence or plot twist if I have waited to get to my desk. Maybe some day soon the dream will come true and I'll be able to write full time, and have help with the daily 'stuff' of life. For now my work keeps me sane in a world shared with singing purple dinosaurs, and the pram in the hall gives me something to lean on while catching ideas on scraps of paper as I walk.