The Real Writing Life

When the little folk gather around TG's knees to ask their innocent questions, one of the first out of their mouths is the statement, “Oh, TG, I do so want to be a writer.” TG's response is, usually, “Why on God's green earth would you want to do that?” Really, for the most part, it's a terrible job, a terrible life, though public perception gives it a sort of glamour. It's like the way people now see chefs as heroic, extremely cool figures. I agree, they're heroic, (full disclosure, TG's son is a professional chef) but for the thousands of regular chefs who aren't on TV, it's an incredibly grueling and dangerous job. Ask one of them who's been in the kitchen for 12 hours, eight of them in front of a six burner Viking with the flame on high, hair singed, burn scars on their hands and arms, sweating like a pig, having to down quarts and quarts of liquids to keep from passing out, ask that guy how cool it is to be a chef.

Now find a regular, working writer who's facing a deadline, or worse, has no work at all, who can't come up with a decent idea or paying project, who's spent years working on a book that's perfectly good but no publisher will touch because they've heard that no one is buying books these days, who knows that the only money he's going to make is a product of beating the bushes, pleading, sending out queries and thinking, thinking, thinking. Ask that writer how cool it is to sit alone in a room facing a blank computer screen.

So when a writer comes to me with an essay like the following, I say good for you. Will I put it up? You bet. This is a place for Thriller Guy to bitch and moan about the business. All you other real writers out there, you got a beef? Send it in.

Reader, sit back away from your computer. Anonymous here is about to burn down your screen.


(And click on the comments to hear what other writers have to say.)

The One Phrase About Writing That’s Makes Me Want to Kill

                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                          Anonymous

I cheerfully admit that I have a lot of hate. It keeps me going. We all draw our strength and creativity from somewhere. I get mine from anger. (Also from absurdity, but that’s a different story.)

There’s one thing that I hate more than anything else. It’s not a certain country, a person or even how jalapeno peppers are not hot anymore. Before I tell you the collection of words that makes me want to puke, let me offer some back story about me.

I am a working writer. Even having to put the word ‘working’ before the word writer makes me gag, but that’s what separates me from people who think they want the glamour of being a writer and those who actually do it. And before you jump down my throat for being a jerk… when people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I am a writer, their next question usually is: Really, have you had anything published? Of course, you idiot. How else could I be writing for my job. Would you ask a lawyer if he has any cases or doctor if he has any patients? (Have you guessed the phase that bugs me yet?) It’s related, as you’ll see in a minute.

For the past 30 years I have earned my living as a writer. I have written books, magazine articles, I worked in newspapers, newsletters, speeches – if you can write it, I have written it. Anything that makes a buck. I am one of a handful of people who actually make a living – some years are better than others – by sitting my ass in front of my computer and typing out dollars. Aside: I mainly write non-fiction books but also a mystery novel which paid my admission to the Squatting Toad group. Currently, I am making dough by writing and editing a website about Homeland Security.

I’m what you call a journeyman (probably a politically incorrect word but journeyperson sounds dumb). I get up every morning and go to work. In many respects, I’m like the adults in the Brooklyn neighborhood where I grew up who were plumbers, electricians, mailmen, movie projectionists. They got up and did their jobs. Sometimes they liked it and sometimes not so much. But what held it together was making money to support themselves and their families.

And that brings me to the phrase that doesn’t pay. The one I abhor.

“Writer’s Block.”

What the hell is that?

Do plumbers have have plumber’s block? Do electricians have electrician’s block? Do people who work in McDonald’s have hamburger block?

That’s often the second question people ask me. “Do you ever have writer’s block?” My answer always involves plumbers and electricians delivered with a sneer. I hope the listener gets what I’m saying, but usually not.

Yeah, I have days that I don’t feel like working, but who doesn’t? And there are days I’m sick of writing. Do teachers want to face snotty-faced kids everyday? No, but they do it.

Like them, I can’t afford not to work. So when I hear the phrase writer’s block it demeans my life’s work, as if I have a choice of working or not.

If my angry countenance has not chased away the cocktail party questioner who wants to further discuss writing, the third question is often this: “I would love to write if I had the time. I know I can do it when I get my creative juices flowing. You know, when I feel my muse. How do you get your ideas?”

Grrrr.

“Real writers,” I say, in my best condescending voice, “don’t have muses. They have mortgages.”

This usually drives them away, and under their breath I often hear them mutter: “What an asshole.”