It's My Dirty Little Secret!

Chuck Wendig over on terrible minds
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/08/10/what-its-like-being-a-writer/
throws out the question 'What's it like being a writer?'


Why! Don't ya know? It's my dirty little secret.


He (CW) compares it to having a virus and he is spot on. People
{non-wannabe-writers} just don't get it. Much the same way I don't get why
you can't keep your red nosed weepy eyed germ laden breath at home today.
They don't understand the compulsion to turn words into sentences into
paragraphs into pages.


Why would you waste a perfectly good day doing that? She asks? Why did
you come to work today? I ask.


If you're not getting paid for it; it's worthless. If you live in the
west; where everything is measured in shekels; it's doubly worthless. So
if you haven't a published work(s) under your arm you can't call yourself a
writer. It's not allowed.

But if you have a hobby now that's a completely different animal. What do
you do? 'I fish' translation I sit on the bank being eaten by insects
getting drunk. That has validation. That has respect. But I don't know
many women who fish but lots who(want to) write.

Why do I torture myself like this - I can't help it. I see a beautiful
sunset I wonder how to describe it so someone can see it. I can't just
enjoy it the sunset for itself.

I eat a delicious meal I ask what the ingredients are so I can reproduce it
on paper. Not cause I'm going to treat my family.

I am exhausted lying under the covers and my mind is questioning the word
exhausted; it's too passive, it doesn't describe this bone weary, body
dragging sensation where I'm so tired even the blankets hurt.


And the guilt! Added to the Irish martyr mother guilt, it's almost (but not
quite) deadly. Every free moment or afternoon off is laden with guilt.
Wouldn't your time be better spent 'living'?
And what about the shame? Spending all that valuable quality time not on your family but selfishly totting up word counts, creating nothing out of nothing, hoping something will come of it? Hang your head NOW and do not look me in the eye. I have your number. I know what you've been doing under the sheets.

For me a lot of the time I feel like I am living once removed. I am not
really in the moment at all. And I worry I really do about how this is
effecting my children. Will they grow up into some kind of monsters
because their mother is some kind of addled wannabe writer who doesn't know
the saucepans on fire? Again.


It's a dream. To make my income from putting words together. Do I have a
right to dream that dream?