Carpentry...
Yes, you read that right. I'm going to discuss carpentry.
So many of us who write look to our spouses as a form of writing support group. Writing is hard. No, it isn't usually "Where is my next meal coming from?" hard, but it is taxing at a deep level. So much of what we do is tied to us. We judge ourselves in our work. We throw ourselves into it with both feet.
Then, we make one of the biggest mistakes we can. We turn to our spouses and say "Honey, can you read this section I just wrote and tell me what you think?"
At least I do that. It sucks, and it's wrong.
Why? You ask.
It's wrong because we are like carpenters. We build things. They can be simple stories, or span galaxies, with new languages, different races, and space ships, or even finding a new way to retell a classic. In any case, we are creators.
Carpenters can look at a joist, or a stud, and immediately say "I'd have done that differently. Look, the nail head is crooked, and it's not square." Admit it. How many of you have read a book and looked at pages and gone on to think "That was awful. They messed that whole scene up. I could have done it better." I bet there are lots of us who do that. Sometimes, I get trapped in a story that is so compelling, I don't want to come out, but those other times, woo, I can't help but feel the story keeps bucking like when I first tried to learn to drive stick shift.
Carpenters are craftsmen and women like us. They see the pieces and how they fit. My wife is not a carpenter. She's not a writer, though she's an avid reader. When I put a piece of my writing in front of her, out of context, and slightly changed from the last time she saw it, she has no way of telling what it's supposed to do. She likes stories, not intangible pieces that come out of nowhere, as far as she's concerned. Like the average homeowner, she would rather see a completed room, or better, how the house looks when it is all put together.
So, in short, let our spouses be what they are and let's not try and change them. If they like to read, the way my wife does, we can't force them to be writers, or to look at thing with a writer's eye. They are no substitute for critique partners or beta readers. They are, however, crucial for that support that comes from someone who takes care you in other ways. Mine has brought me lunch at my computer, and taken on extra parenting duties to let me get my creative juices flowing, and it means so much when she does that. She can't see the subtle foreshadowing because it isn't foreshadowing anything that's not simply in my mind, or written twenty drafts ago. It's a jumbled mess, but she knows that I'm putting together something that's going to be great, and she tells me so when I am feeling like it's not coming out the way I'd like it to.
Like it or not, we need each other. We're a guild of like minds, off in different directions, but able to spot the things each other is doing, and the hows and the whys. We are much like carpenters. We craft stories, and like them, our work should be around a generation after we're gone -at least if we do it right.
