Writing is work

I'm writing a book this year -- whether it's the project I'm already working on or something new -- I'm going to finish something in 2012.

There's just one problem: 

He stands about 5'11" and he'd happily carve out my writer bits with a melon baller -- I really think so. 

How do you make a nonwriter understand that writing is more than a hobby -- that it's work? 

How do you make a nonwriter understand that writing is a process that can't be tapped on and off at will?

This is a recurring battle in our household -- hubby is a scheduler, and very little that I excell at is conducive to a spreadsheet.

Today, for example, my dad took the kids and Jerod went to work -- excellent opportunity to hammer out a few dozen pages, right?

Wrong:

I gave it my all, but I haven't spent much time with my characters this month, and it turns out -- rightfully so -- they weren't very happy to see me. They gave me the silent treatment all day. 

My husband won't understand this. 

I'll complain at some point this week that I need a couple of hours to write, and he'll say, "You had an entire day to write."

And I'll say, "That was more like a warm up."

Then he'll get all puffy like he does pre pontification and I'll get "the right way to do shit" lecture for the millionth time in our near 13-year marriage.

"There's the right way to do shit and the wrong way," he say. "We don't do things the 'Lex way,' because you almost always favor the wrong way to do shit."

WTF does he know about writing?

As far as I know he's read Thinner, by Stephen King; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson; and Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls. 

If there was something on TV about the writing process -- if a complete stranger in front of a camera said everything I've said about writing -- he'd hang on every word.

So, Someone on TV:

Tell my husband that writing is work.