Larkin shows us the ideal writer’s life: the (male) author whose needs are tended to, whose emotional connections are secondary to his work, whose selfishness is unquestioned, whose freedom is total. I mean, it sounds heavenly, right? From the point of view of a regular well-adjusted member of society, you would think that loneliness would be a serious problem. If you retreat from the world, and serve only your own needs, you’re bound to get lonely, right? The thing is, writers don’t really get lonely. Liking being alone—even liking loneliness itself—is part of what makes a writer a writer. After I had children, I was an almost full-time mom, working about a quarter time at freelance writing. I thought to myself, how lucky that I am a writer, so that when I am working I get all this lovely restorative alone time. It was years before I realized: Oh. I became a writer so I could be alone all the time. It wasn’t a by-product, it was a motivator.

The kinds of lives that are typically thought of as nice by non-writers, lives that involve things like unending vacations; things like never having to work again—these kinds of lives don’t sound nice to writers. Not really. Writers want be left alone to write, and be waited on.