The Work-Life Balance: A Writer Speaks

There was an amusing piece by Meg Rosoff on the Guardian website the other day. She begins:

So far this year I've toured in Holland, Germany, the US and Italy. I've travelled around England signing books. I've contributed articles to tomes with titles like The Best Teenage Book Guide in The Universe, EVER! I delivered a lecture on The Crossover Novel, judged a first novel prize, wrote an introduction to Black Beauty, spoke at literary festivals, secondary schools, and teacher conferences. I signed 2,000 books in a warehouse in Rugby.

I also squeezed in writing a book. I would like to write another one. If I don't write another one, no one will be interested in asking me to do all those things that get in the way of writing books. Which means I'll end up in the publishing gutter: penniless, friendless and agentless, churning out magic unicorn bodice-rippers for tweenies under an assumed name.

This is, at the moment, how I see my future.

Do go and read it; Rosoff is quite bitter about Jeanette Winterson's "Room of her own", but in a light-hearted way.