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"I used to feel that I spent too much of my time in my pajamas doing nothing..."

"... and I?d think 'in the time that I don't spend writing, I could raise a family of five.' In a lot of ways, being a writer is lonely and alienating. You hear about the work ethic of people like Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike and you think 'well, God bless them, but I don?t know how they do it.' Most of the rest of us just wind up watching Oprah. I was roaming the neighborhood every day, lingering at the dog run with my dog. It was really bad. I just wasn?t doing enough, and I feel like law school sort of gave me my voice back. When you have a lot to do, you get a lot done. At least that?s how it?s been for me."

That's Elizabeth Wurtzel trying to give a believable answer to the question why she went from the life of a writer into the big law firm lawyer's life. So you think, with all my free time I could be raising 5 kids, so.... I'll go to law school and work in a big law firm?

Actually, I understand the logic. When you are purely a writer, you are hanging around the house a lot. You can feel very odd and at loose ends. If the house is empty, you may think, I could be raising kids what with all the time I spend loafing and moping, but that doesn't mean you want to raise kids (who you must know will be demanding during your creative spurts as well as your down time). It just means, it's a weird way to live, on your own at home. Maybe what you need is not other human beings in the house, but to get out of the house, to have a life that has more to do with interacting with adults and affecting the network of adult activities. Law is the perfect entree.

And a writer needs something to write about. You may venture out into that complex world of adult enterprises and eventually bring it all back home, where you can write again. We were just talking about the way Bill Ayers signed up as a merchant seaman, thinking he'd gather the material he to write a great novel. Was Ayers thinking about Herman Melville? Joseph Conrad? Was Wurtzel thinking about Scott Turow?

Full post as published by Althouse on October 12, 2008 (boomark / email).