More writing about writing
Nov. 26th, 2006 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithMuch blogging going on about the life of a working writer, mostly here, here, here, and over here. And here. There are likely some I missed, but they all seem to link together in one long blog necklace eventually, so give it time. If you want to read it, it will come.
I am not a working writer, in that I do not derive the majority of my income from writing. When I first started, I thought for sure that I would be able to quit the day job within a couple of years, but reality soon applied a blackjack upside my head. I'm not a fast writer. Too much worry about finances freezes me. When things get rough emotionally, I can barely manage sentences, much less entire books and stories. Add in the inconsistencies of the publishing world, and no, thanks. I'll do the best I can until I retire from the day job.
Maybe it's because I started so late. I didn't sell my first books until I was thisclose to 40, and I already had the mortgage and other financial obligations that I felt well and truly mitigated against taking any plunges into the deep end of the working writer pool. And even so, I know there are folks who took the chance, and some of them may have succeeded, but I know myself well enough to know that choice wouldn't work for me.
Writing can be a good job. When things are going well, it's the best there is. When it's not...I'm afraid I'm not one of those who can say that my worst day writing was better than my best day on my day job. My worst days writing are some of my worst days ever because writing's where my heart is. Too much fear. Too many roller coaster highs and lows. I've said it before--the day job is the marriage of convenience, relatively steady and not too exciting. Writing is the love of my life. But it's an inconstant love, capricious and cruel. I don't trust it. I don't trust the business. I don't trust the muse. Not going in without back-up, no the fuck way. I have to have room to maneuver.
I read some of the things that writers post here, and I get scared. Every time I let my mind wander, every time I start to gauge the depth at the deep end and think maybe, I reread those posts.
I am not a working writer, in that I do not derive the majority of my income from writing. When I first started, I thought for sure that I would be able to quit the day job within a couple of years, but reality soon applied a blackjack upside my head. I'm not a fast writer. Too much worry about finances freezes me. When things get rough emotionally, I can barely manage sentences, much less entire books and stories. Add in the inconsistencies of the publishing world, and no, thanks. I'll do the best I can until I retire from the day job.
Maybe it's because I started so late. I didn't sell my first books until I was thisclose to 40, and I already had the mortgage and other financial obligations that I felt well and truly mitigated against taking any plunges into the deep end of the working writer pool. And even so, I know there are folks who took the chance, and some of them may have succeeded, but I know myself well enough to know that choice wouldn't work for me.
Writing can be a good job. When things are going well, it's the best there is. When it's not...I'm afraid I'm not one of those who can say that my worst day writing was better than my best day on my day job. My worst days writing are some of my worst days ever because writing's where my heart is. Too much fear. Too many roller coaster highs and lows. I've said it before--the day job is the marriage of convenience, relatively steady and not too exciting. Writing is the love of my life. But it's an inconstant love, capricious and cruel. I don't trust it. I don't trust the business. I don't trust the muse. Not going in without back-up, no the fuck way. I have to have room to maneuver.
I read some of the things that writers post here, and I get scared. Every time I let my mind wander, every time I start to gauge the depth at the deep end and think maybe, I reread those posts.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 12:53 am (UTC)I have no idea if it will work which is why, right now, it's just something extra to pay off a couple of bills early. Assuming the company cutting checks to me doesn't, you know, find it hard to pay me, or something like that. But I figured a while ago that a) I've got too many stories I want to write and, especially working in the IT field, I won't get to all the ones in my mind right now until 2012. If I want to get them on paper, I have to make more time in my life for it, and right now the time taken up by the dayjob looks mighty attractive.
And I've got that extra-scary factor of offspring to consider. Which means, if anything, I'm on a multi-year plan to quitting the dayjob (or, at least, scaling it back a bit). Nothing else is remotely responsible, much less feasible.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:39 am (UTC)I've got two multi-book thingies--one trilogy, one who-knows--in mind, and something very different that Madame Agent has advised I would need to complete prior to submission because it would be submitted to a market where no one knows me. So, yeah, 2012, easy. I'll be *ack* 54 by then, and I am quite aware of the saying that production starts to slack off around 60.
And I know how quickly the time goes. I've been thinking about a lot of things lately.
I have to go into this on my terms. The will-anyone-buy-what-I-have-to-sell worry comes last of all.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 03:10 am (UTC)It's amazing, really, the things that just sort of pop into one's head. At this point, I can still revel in the idea of a new novel or long story... but at some point soon it's going to be accompanied with: "Damn... how many years of writing and rewriting per novel?"
I've heard John Ringo can crank them out in a matter of weeks. I so much want to be like him... and yet... not so much.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:12 am (UTC)The marketplace favors a certain type of writer, and if you're not that type, you're left wondering if you can ever keep your head above water, much less excel.
I'm hoping that the small presses continue to develop, and that online markets multiply so that there are outlets for writers who produce steadily, but more slowly.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 08:41 pm (UTC)I'm always suspicious of such things. *Why* does production slack off then? Is it health? Well, if your health is good, then that shouldn't be a factor. Is it that the writer's spouse is retired/children grown and now there are other things to focus on? Again, if this isn't an issue, it's not an issue.
I would ignore such doom-saying and just keep on going. I'm still dying to read Magpie. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 08:44 pm (UTC)Sweetpea, you're only two years older than I am. Stop it with the age angst! :-) We're not that old! Well, my joints *are* that old, but the rest of me is doing ok. Go. Play with a puppy. You'll feel better.