My partner and I recently went to the coast for a long weekend of writing. He was working on a new play. I was working on a new novel. Both of us are hoping to finish these projects by the year’s end, and we’re both feeling driven.

We had a weekend of great productivity and sloth. Productivity because we got a lot of writing and thinking done. Sloth because we did hardly anything else. We went out for meals, we went on some walks, I did some in-house yoga, but otherwise we were in butt-to-the-chair writing mode, ignoring friends, family, household jobs, community involvements. We had one priority, writing, and that was what we did.

When we were back in our ‘regular’ lives on Monday, it occurred to me that to be a writer in this hectic day and age (or maybe in any day and age), you must embrace being a bad citizen. You must put writing first almost always. What that often—usually—means is saying no: no to committee work, no to fundraising for worthy organizations, no to social gatherings and dinner parties, no to coaching one’s child’s sports teams, no to book groups, no to numerous enrichment activities like classes and lectures.

Part of this no-sayingis to maximize writing time.  Most writing projects take far more time than one ever imagines, and discretionary time is hard to come by when you have to support yourself, and if you also want to have a child or two, and you hope to be a reasonably good partner.

The other part of saying nois that saying yes often means immersing oneself in a cause and thereby losing one’s detachment. To be a writer is to inhabit a posture of detachment, to have an identity that is somewhat protean and allows you to move in and out of many perspectives. Writers need to be outsiders, not advocates or organizers. Writers must be observers, and being an observer means being outside the fray so you can see certain things clearly. Writers who allow themselves to be advocates often produce work that is narrow and polemical.

I do not mean that writers are amoral people. In general they tend to be law-abiding. They are usually not felons, or tax evaders, or supporters of fascist governments. But they do tend to extricate themselves from the community at large. You cannot count on a committed writer to knock on doors to get a petition signed, or to provide bake sale goodies, or to serve on a board. These things take too much time that might be spent writing.

Let it be known that there are a number of writers who I regard as extremely good citizens. Dave Eggers not only raised his younger brother, but he started McSweeney’s, which has been a great boon to writers. Scott Turow has been a tireless leader and spokesperson for the Authors Guild, waging battles against Amazon and Google. Louise Erdrich and Ann Patchett have both opened independent bookstores. But the activism of these writers has been, at least in part, to benefit writers and readers.

There is a much longer list of hermetic writers, writers who shun the limelight, and separate themselves from the world, and disappear between books. Think Cormac McCarthy, Donna Tartt, Alice McDermott. They may be traveling to Southeast Asia as relief workers during their periods of silence, but I doubt it. I think about what Alice Munro’s daughter said when asked what her mother did. “She rests,” the girl said. Which was to say she disappeared, because Alice Munro, like most writers, has had to remove herself from the fray in order to write.

This is particularly difficult for women, I think. Women are often a social lynchpin, in both the family and the community. For women to absent themselves from a social or familial scene is difficult, particularly if they are not convinced of the value of the work that takes them away from the group where they are more clearly needed.

But I am here to encourage every writer who feels a deep calling to write, to embrace the hermit identity, the outsider identity, the identity of a reluctant participant in the culture at large. We cannot expect to do all things well. So set aside your guilt, be a devoted writer, and embrace being a bad citizen.