I briefly subscribed to Mslexia but didn’t renew. I have an aversion to anything that singles out any aspect of society for special attention. I'm not talking about specialist interests here, but broad groups; gender, race, religion, sexual orientation. As if, because we’re female or christian or gay, or whatever, we all have the same views and tastes.

Also there’s the subliminal suggestion that, as women writers, we need some extra help. That’s why I object to, for instance, the Orange Prize. We don’t need that extra layer of discrimination, do we?

Dee

I've just subscribed. I'll just have to read the articles through a looking glass; I'm a male writer getting support from my female partner who goes off to work while I stay at home and fit my writing around ironing, hoovering and looking after the kids. Or do I fit those around writing?

Colin

Dee,

I see your point, but I think that there is a place for magazines like Mslexia - and I say that with regret...I wish there wasn't a need. I don't think magazines like that are suggesting that everyone in a 'broad group' will have the same tastes/views, but that there will be plenty of common ground that isn't getting enough coverage elsewhere. For example, the issue of Mslexia I've just read includes an article about the huge imbalance gender-wise in review pages of mainstream magazines: 70% of the books reviewed were by male authors; 72% of the reviewers were male, in a survey done on 19 magazines.

Colin,

I'd be interested to hear your views on the article about getting support from partners.

Myrtle

Without reading the mag, I agree with Dee because I'm a writer but feel can't enter certain competitions because they are for women only. Are bloke writers such a threat that women would never beat us when it comes to prose.

No need to answer that

Myrtle,

Just got the magazine this morning. There was problems getting it through INP, but it's all sorted now.

That feature is the only thing I've read so far, and I have to say, it's not the best, or most balanced, or even intelligent argument I've read. The basis of the article is fine, that a writer, male or female, needs someone to bounce ideas off, to understand the frustrations, the let downs and the successes, but it goes on to ask far too much from a partner or a spouse (whether you're male or female).

Me, for example. I'm a bloke. But, I'm a housewife (if you get my meaning) My wife is the one who goes out to work, but that involves many things that I don't understand. I can listen to her, but not completely underand because a)I can't possibly have the same enthusiasm about paediatric nursing as she does, and b) I'm not really interested.

Now, I'll admit, that I mean "b" in a tongue in cheek way, but essentially it's true. I'm interested in listening to what goes on and the people-drama of work, but I can't really get enthusiastic about the technicalities, not because of "a" (that I don't understand them) but simply because it's not a subject that floats my boat. Therefore, what right do I have as a househubbby with a writing hobby (cos it ain't a career until you get an income) to expect her to have the interest, enthusiam and intellect to be as supportive as this article suggests.

I think it's doing something that small readership magazines play on from time to time. They are making an aliance with their reader by finding a common enemy. In other words; catering to the predjudices of their audience. It's a cheap trick and fairly transparent, despite the author trying to show she doesn't hold strict feminist views.

I do agree that a writer needs someone but that doesn't have to be your spouse. This is why blokes find other blokes in pubs so they can talk about football, and the wife spends all night on the phone talking about soaps and babies (insert similar insult here).

Just because your partner doesn't understand your interest/profession, don't, for fuck's sake, dump them, cos you'll wake up one day with someone who's got exactly the same interests as you, and you'll find them boring as shite.

Anyway, full of wine, so forgive rant and any errors. And all things aside, the magazine does look worth the money.

Have a nice evening
Colin

Aaargh!! I'm full of wine too, and I want to write all sorts of things here! Colin, I earn more than my husband, and I'm never really sure that he can cope with that - it must be very frustrating trying to get to grips with staying at home, doing what needs to be done but not getting any proof of worth! I do both - bring in the dollars and make the tea, but my 'outlet', here on WW, isn't really understood.

I subscribe to Mslexia, but I have to say that it shouldn't have to be! Why only for women, why not only for gays or muslims or yobbos or house husbands!!?? It's very odd, when you think about it.

Keep at it with the writing because it's quite probably more important than paediatric nursing!

Like I said, lots of wine!

joanie

Colin,
I agree about the 'common enemy' point - that's what disappointed me about the article, along with the little charts and so on, because I do think it's an important issue and it seemed such a shame to get silly about it, and ruin any good points it had to make. My partner hasn't read a book since he left school - and even then he'd get the film out if he could and avoid the set texts altogether. He is, quite unashamedly, a computer nerd. However, he is very supportive of my writing in the sense that he won't let me sit around moping about it or blaming him or anyone or anything else for my lack of progress (he has written and published a technical book so he knows what it takes to a certain extent) - in fact he is currently making me a chart of how many words I have to write per day in order to finish my novel by Xmas. He will probably never read my novel; he will certainly never edit bits of it (heaven forbid!) but I do find his emotional support essential. And I know that, if we're ever in a financial position for me to stop working, he will be the first to say 'go for it'. Meanwhile, I tell him his new software designs look really pretty...
Myrtle (sadly only on pineapple juice)

I think that's as much as you can expect from a partner. The article mentions certain writers who got so much help from their other half, but so what? Lots of people who have full time jobs AND have to do their own ironing, washing etc have to manage time to find time for writing. The article was going so well, pointing out that we need someone to babble to - which I must say is a very important part of the creative process and how the hell my wife puts up with my teenage angst tantrums and moods I'll never know - it's babbling, or writing a letter, or an email about what you plan to do that often sorts the whole thing out in your mind.

Colin
(now full of seafood bolognese and some more wine)
(home made of course, by me, the housewife!)
(WWmail for recipe!)

I think a really important issue is whether the writer feels that what they do is important enough to merit 'support' - you have to believe in what you're doing if you want someone else to. For me this has meant letting go of the feeling that I had to do the housework, earn money, make nice dinners, look after after my baby, socialise, decorate the flat, look nice etc etc all to some impossibly high degree AND write a novel. So now my house often looks rubbish, as do I, I don't go out during the week, and we just ate a ready-cooked chicken... but my book is coming along better than ever - I finally started to think of it as important enough, I suppose. But that feeling had to come from me, not from my partner saying 'put the hoover down'.

M.

Myrtle, that's just wonderful; I wish I had the guts to do it.

joanie

For my writing (though not in other ways) the most helpful thing my husband did was to leave, even though my children were 3 and 6 at the time. Not that he wasn't supportive when we were married, he was, very. But once I had 48 hours in an empty house every other weekend, and two weeks every summer...

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't rather be a married parent and married writer than a single one, because I would.

I've just come across a great quote:

'The only solution to this problem... is DO not keep house. Let the house, or flat, go to the devil, and see what happens when it has gone there. At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a live unlived.'

Rose Macauley, writing in the early 1920s. Plus ça change...

Emma

Like Myrtle, I've finally sent off for Mslexia's try before you buy too. It sounds really interesting from what people have said on here. I'll reserve judgement until I read it!

Cath