Do You Get A Helping Hand From Your Family?

January 19, 2011

In my post from last week, ‘How Much Of An Impact Has Your Personal Life Had On Your Freelance Writing Career?’, one of the comments was by Justin P Lambert.

Making some really good points, one thing that Justin mentioned was that he felt getting married and having children made him more motivated to succeed, as, in his own words, “that’s what really helped me solidify in my own mind what the most important things really were”.

Reading this, it made me begin to think about how important my family are to my work, how involved they are and whether I take them for granted in the work sense.

I strongly believe that the family of every single writer out there provides some type of help. Whether it’s direct and they’re really hands on or they help out in other ways, I have a firm belief that a writer from any family would struggle to succeed without their family’s support and assistance.

Generally speaking, I try not to get my family involved in my work in the sense that they’re drafting blog posts or press releases. I’m naturally quite an insular person and so where people, including my family, don’t need to know something about my work, I don’t generally go out of my way to explain what I’m doing or asking.

I’m not sure whether that’s a good point or a bad point in all honesty, but that’s another post.

When I’ve been snowed under with work, I have asked my Better Half to do a little bit of research for me or proof a few pieces, but for the most part, I don’t ask my family to help out with work.

Just because my family don’t help in this sense doesn’t mean that they don’t help at all and their assistance comes in the form that they give me the space and time to do what I love and arguably more importantly, are understanding.

I work 70 hour weeks (although this is something I’m really aiming to stop in 2011). I get up at 7am and work on and off from around 8.30am through to 1.00am.

Yeah, I’m in my mid-twenties, don’t have any kids and we have a place of our own, so you might think it’s relatively easy to work long days, as there’s little interference.

And to a certain degree, you’d be right.

But we try and head out to see our parents for dinner one night a week (once at my Better Half’s parents and once at mine). We have to reschedule these sometimes because of my work and sometimes I’m more than fashionably late.

Do they shout if I’m late? Nope, my dinner is just sat waiting in the oven for me.

Do they get angry if I have to reschedule? Never, they just — like any parent whose children have moved out — wish they could see their children more.

Trying to organise some time with friends is a nightmare, too. Sure, they’re all busy because of work as well, but when they’re free on a night or all weekend, I have to check my schedule to see what deadlines I’ve got to meet around the time we’re planning on going out.

And simply put, my fiancé needs a medal the size of a dustbin lid.

She’s a Piano Teacher who works afternoons and evenings Monday to Friday, so we don’t see each other from when I leave the house at 8.00am until 9.00pm at night.

We’ll have dinner, watch some TV and then she’ll head to bed at 10.30pm, which is when I start work again — if not before if I’m really busy (I’m actually writing this now whilst I’m sat on the sofa with my laptop, her next to me with the Sky TV paused, as I’ve said those words “I’ll just be two secs…”).

I know she would get annoyed occasionally last year that we didn’t spend as much time with each other as we could, but it’s got to the point in both our relationship and my working career that I understand the importance of being able to schedule work in advance so I can balance my personal and work lives better.

And if I do end up working too much, she just gives me a little nudge to remind me that she’s there!

It wasn’t until last week that I realised just how much my family do for me in terms of my work. They might not help out with the actual writing or consulting, but I have no idea what I’d do if they weren’t so understanding (or if my fiancé didn’t do the housework!).