One author finds time

I was reading a story in the New York Times about Anne Enright, the winner of Britain's 2007 Man Booker Prize for her novel "The Gathering." (I haven't read the book, but it must be pretty good.)


Of interest to me were a few paragraphs at the end of the article regarding Anne's writing time:

“The kids go to school; I sit down and write,” she
said. “The kids go to bed; I sit down and write.” Her husband, Martin Murphy, who runs a theater outside Dublin, works at night, which makes finding time to be together a challenge. “At the Booker dinner I thought maybe we could talk about our holiday plans,” she said, laughing. But in different ways they were both too nervous.

Oddly enough, Ms. Enright said, having children — she has two, 4 and 7 — has made her work easier.

“I find that the whole sense of anxiety and largeness, the sense that you’re writing everything, the allness of it, disappears completely,” she said. “You have just three or four hours a day, and you’re going to write a book, and it just shrinks the work into its proper proportion.”

Obviously, Anne is a full-time writer. Personally, I can say with authority that having two kids doesn NOT make writing easier. It gives you something beautiful to write about, but the actual TIME to write all but disappears. I'm very thankful to God for providing me a wife who realizes this and does what she can to help me find the time.


Ahh...just more encouragement to make it, right?