On Being A “Writer”

I don’t know how they do it.

You know the ones I’m talking about: the writers who, in their spare time,  wrote novels that became international hits.

Writing novels isn’t hard per se, as in it’s not difficult to sit in front of a computer and type. But it’s more difficult to produce a coherent, functioning story that can entertain people.

I want to make my story the best one possible, but I have to balance that with the reality of having a job and a family. I’m pretty sure I could crank out thousands of words a day if I didn’t have a job that sucked up ten hours a day.

So what to do? It’s like the chicken or the egg: I could be a successful writer if I quit my job, but I can’t quit my job until I become a successful writer.

Sometimes it gets frustrating, but ultimately, I have to remember that writing isn’t my job- yet. So why do I write? Because I’m a writer. I’m a lot of other things too, but that’s a part of what I am. I just have to put it on the back burner sometimes.

When I see stories about successful writers who wrote past midnight while raising a family and working full-time, I want to roll my eyes. Is that even possible? I guess it is, but it has to be so astronomically improbably that its not worth trying.

Or is it? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated that I don’t have enough time to do it right. Maybe I’m jealous, or maybe I just put unrealistic expectations on myself. Probably a little bit of all of those.

So I guess I’ll just do the best I can, and see what happens. So far, I’ve written around 35,000 words on the novel. I’m not planning on quitting, but- it will get done when it gets done.

That will have to be good enough.