Putting up shelves

It's the end of a long, stressful week in my private life, when I thought my marriage was going to end. I made a stupid, careless remark, my wife thought that I couldn't care less about my marriage, and I've spent all this time trying to say sorry. Perversely, my day job - which is normally stressful - became unusually calm, as if to compensate. But the upshot, as far as this blog is concerned, is that I had other things on my mind apart from writing. And when I did pick up my notebook, it was with a feeling of deep guilt.
To be honest, it's been a big problem ever since I got married. Because, when you're a writer, you have to carry a lot of stuff inside your head. You can't share it, at least until the first draft is written. I can't write if my wife is in the room, I have to put my notebooks and pens away. It is a secret, and that's not good.
My wife has never deliberately tried to stop me writing. On the contrary, she bought me an electric typewriter and a desk which she couldn't really afford. But people who don't want to write can't always understand people who can. And surely it borders on mental illness when you're thinking "How will this character react to this problem?" instead of worrying about your finances. But writers don't have the choice.
Incidentally, I made the mistake, a couple of times after I got married, of using things my wife had told me as the basis for stories. Sometimes, your loved ones don't mind "modelling" for you (sometimes, you'll even be approached by people who want to "model" for you, although I would suggest that you avoid those people). But my wife is a private person, and was furious with me.
I was younger, then. I learnt a hard lesson. If I could go back in time...
The only way I can create fictional characters is to first of all think of people whom I know in real life. Sorry, that's the way it is. You can take bits from two or three real people for your fictional character ; but those people need to be pretty similar to each other or the transplants will be rejected. It doesn't matter if you want to create a horrible character, and you base that character on somebody you don't like. But to create a likeable character, you start off thinking about a person whom you like. It's a dilemna.
I'm not the only writer with this problem. In fact, the only happily married writer I can think of is the late, great Jack Rosenthal. I wish I could ask his widow, the actress Maureen Lipman, what their secret was. I wish, too, that someone would write a manual for having a healthy relationship aimed at writers, or perhaps creative people in general.
Is it purely ego which makes us create? And is it any worse than the impulse to cook ? Is the man who thinks he can write worse than the man who thinks he can put up shelves?
Initially, I picked up my notebook again because I thought : Well, if we're getting divorced anyway...The dust has settled now, my wife is talking to me again. If I was sensible, if I had any choice in the matter, I would burn my notebook and concentrate purely on my marriage. Which would probably be happier if I was good at putting up shelves...
But no. The notebook has come out. Sentences have been written down. I need to do this, it goes beyond logic.
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The trickle has been, for obvious reasons, slow this week, but it is coming. I've felt a renewed enthusiasm for the project. And that means a renewed enthusiasm for life in general. Life is never so good for me as when I've got a project underway, especially when I feel good about the project. I'm a better human being then ; nicer, happier, sometimes verging on intelligent.
I've read back some of my dialogue, and it's not bad (by my standards, anyway). A metaphor has emerged in the writing. I was thinking about certain pop songs. Pop music is a great inspiration for me, and sometimes, as I'm writing a piece, I ask myself : Which song would go over the final credits? What is the "theme tune" of this piece?
I started thinking about The Who's masterpiece I Can See For Miles. On the surface, it's a song about a man who's been betrayed by an unfaithful partner. But actually, it's a coded song (like that Irish folk song Four Green Fields). It's about betrayal in general. It comes to you when you've been sold out by governments and institutions as well.
And it occurred to me that Diana Spencer's funeral was a sort of equivalent to the song I Can See For Miles. The event was coded. That behind the grief was anger - and not just the normal anger you might feel at a loved one's funeral. Anger at EVERYTHING.
So, my character Jackie Platt now has a few lines comparing Diana's funeral to the song I Can See For Miles.