Forget housework and keep writing!

We've heard of kitchen-sink writers and I have to say when I first started writing many years ago I used write short stories, first of all in my head and then on the kitchen counter top, while stirring the lunchtime soup.With the children home for the long school holidays each summer and my brothers visiting from abroad not much writing got done during those months..  There were benefits, however, from the enforced time away from the computer, come September when the schools opened again I soon got back in the swing and wrote my quota of words each day; and what's more with a new zest.

In those days I was writing regularly for the BBC and, with two broadcasts a year, was pleased to find that  I had plenty of fresh ideas for stories. I took advantage of a few hours each morning when the house was empty, or as good as, with maybe a baby napping upstairs, to make the most of my free time before heading off to collect the older children from school or kindergarten.  Of course there was still the housework to get through, meals to be prepared, but stories went on writing themselves in my head as I tackled the beds and there was no one about to remark on  'mad mothers' or 'ditzy daughters'  when mouthing sentences aloud or experimenting with dialogue - not that such a word as 'ditzy' was in vogue in those years.

In more recent years chairing an Irish PEN literary evening in the United Arts Club.Anne Enright was the guest author and I listened with interest to her views on housework but it was her entranced  expression as she spoke that made even more impression upon me than her words as she told her audience. 'The car or the kitchen floor will require washing soon again but when you write a story you have it for life.'

Great argument I thought for getting on with your novel or play.  May we all be so clear-sighted!