I just read an interesting post at Christina Katz’s Prosperous Writer blog about creative couples – husband and wife/partner teams who are both working in a creative area. Christina mentions that her husband also works in a creative area (in theatre) and they’re able to provide each other with mutual support, which is pretty important.

Which made me reflect that I’m lucky, too. My husband actually works as an engineer (some might argue they make some creative building decisions, but he would definitely not say that it’s a particularly creative job) but he also trained at art school and contemplated life as a painter. He decided that the career prospects were too shaky and that life as an artist might rule out other normal aspects of life like having a family (and if I’d been around at the time, I would have debated that, but in some ways he’s probably quite right), and chose to keep painting as a hobby and work as an engineer.

However, even if he’s not a full-time artist, he totally gets the creative process and that’s a big help for me. He still paints semi-regularly, and when he does it tends to be in day-long bursts where I know there’s no point interrupting him – although in fact I never want to, because I’m always happy to see him at his easel. This means that if I’m working on finishing a novel or something, he’s also very understanding about the time it might take up for a while.

We also get to have a lot of interesting conversations about how creative people think. They tend to start off with something like, “This person at work said/did/thought this, how is that possible?” and when we break it down, it often turns out that as a non-creative person, their priorities and philosophies are just really different to ours. Having a creative purpose in life, which for both of us is more important than many other purposes, makes us different from the people who seem to be focused on making money or retiring early or whatever, and sharing this view certainly helps both our relationship and our creative endeavours.

If I was married to a “straight engineer” who didn’t have a creative outlet, I think my writing life would be a lot different. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing my writing would be looked at as “my little hobby” and I’d be really struggling to prove myself. As it is, my husband believes even more than me that I can be a successful published writer, and that belief certainly helps me move forwards. I guess a picked a good one!