To write is to write is to write…?
How long have you been a writer? Or have dreamed of becoming one?
How many of you pictured yourselves stretched on a chaise sofa, dictating your wonderful, flowery prose to an assistant as your editor phones with book promotion tour information, lots of money stacked in the corner or, better yet, your staff caring for your every whim as you release book after New York best seller book….
No, that is not the average life of a modern writer. And most likely not the life of a pre-modern writer. Unless you are the new Barbara Cartland…and even this picture is just too much to have been her every day normal life.
Writing is a solitary life. Very few writers have an assistant at their beck and call. Editors (seen only in old movies) usually do not do JUST YOUR BOOK, but edit hundreds of manuscripts every year.
We write. We query. We send proposals. Someday we could get a great contract deal or a following which allows for less querying and proposing….just more writing.
Writing is not a profession to enter into if you want instant fame, instant gratification or throngs of fans. Being J. K. Rowling is not something that happens every day. We can wish it, we can dream it….but write for yourself, to share your craft, to feel good about your gift and especially for those who read your work. The glory comes from knowing you have touched someone else’s life…and hopefully in a good way.
Sometimes I write curled on the sofa or sitting in the floor as my cats try to chase away my thoughts. Sometimes I go to my quiet office and allow my daydreams and characters to come to life. Sometimes I grit my teeth and stare at an empty page or into that vast empty space where my imagination refuses to go. Sometimes I cannot type fast enough to catch all my thoughts.
Such is the life of an author. A writer. And wouldn’t you know, most of us absolutely love it…sharing those thoughts that capture our imagination and hoping they inhabit your thoughts as well…
KW
This was so wonderfully put! You pretty much encapsulated exactly what it’s like to be a writer! Always dreaming up new worlds and characters, sipping a coffee while we madly type up the most exciting scene we’ve ever written, playing with the cats, blinking at a blank page, secretly wishing we were rich and famous and allowing that hope to spur us on. Then finally realising we might never be rich and famous, but that we write because we love it, because we simply must pour our imagination on to the page day after day… knowing that if we don’t, we would surely die.
Thank you so much for your comment Millie! I enjoy seeing other authors just like me have writing lives just like mine…I wish you many great writing days ahead and, please, keep checking back on my site now and again. It is also wonderful to hear from my friends from Oz online, I am such a fan of writers from Down Under! KW
This was so wonderfully put! You pretty much encapsulated exactly what it’s like to be a writer! Always dreaming up new worlds and characters, sipping a coffee while we madly type up the most exciting scene we’ve ever written, playing with the cats, blinking at a blank page, secretly wishing we were rich and famous and allowing that hope to spur us on. Then finally realising we might never be rich and famous, but that we write because we love it, because we simply must pour our imagination on to the page day after day… knowing that if we don’t, we would surely die.
Thank you so much for your comment Millie! I enjoy seeing other authors just like me have writing lives just like mine…I wish you many great writing days ahead and, please, keep checking back on my site now and again. It is also wonderful to hear from my friends from Oz online, I am such a fan of writers from Down Under! KW