Writing is a REAL Job

A few years back I was at the doctor’s office getting my asthma prescription refilled. The doc told me that he always wanted to be a writer but he just never could find the time. “What a coincidence,” I quipped, “I always wanted to be a brain surgeon, but the thought of raising someone’s hood makes me faint.”

There is an ugly myth that’s as dense and ugly as the stench of a sour gas well. It’s propagated by people who are neither readers nor writers, and yet have ordained themselves as such, who think that just because they took a class in creative writing in the eighth grade, they are all Pulitzer Prize winning authors, if, bless them, they only they had time.

Here’s the truth about writing. It’s a dirty truth, an ugly truth, but it is real. It’s as real as a ghetto embedded inside of a gleaming beautiful city. And to those who don’t write but wish they could, here’s something to think about before pidgin holing the local author at your next cocktail party.

Writing is hard work. It’s just as difficult to craft a story or write an essay or a poem (or even this fucking blog post) as it is to get down on your hands and knees and plant tomatoes in the early summer sun. This, of course, is why you are doing something else instead of writing. Perhaps on a visceral level you know your favorite writer has sat on her ass for five or–God help her– eight hours worked. And after hours of grueling toil she looks at her work and decides its shit and feels like the loneliest person in the world. Yet, she goes back the next day and the next, working and crafting and praying that when it publishes she’ll make a buck or two. And you know in your heart that It’s degrading go up to said writer tell her to that you can do the same thing if oh, if only you had the time. Yet, you do it anyway. Yes, I know, there is something glamorous about the life of a solitary writer that people tend to gravitate to. Blame Hemingway for that. I do.
Writing isn’t a hobby. I, like most of my writing associates, went to college and earned a degree. We put in time, energy and effort to hone our craft and create a product that we can sell and earn money from it. Minimizing our abilities because you know how to scrawl out a few paragraphs is demeaning to those of us who earn our bread as wordsmiths.
Just because you can write doesn’t mean you can write. True, writing is a skill that every literate person has. However, being able to write at a middle school or high school level doesn’t make you an author any more than my ability to change a car tire will get me a job as a mechanic on a NASCAR pit crew. If you don’t know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’ or if you can’t tell the difference between “let’s eat Bobby and let’s eat, Bobby” or ‘hukt on fonix werkt fer u,” or—God help you—you write in textspeak you’re not going to get anywhere as a writer. What you will get is lots and lots of rejection slips from angry editors. Want to move from wanna be to pro? Go to school, earn your degree, acquire some skills, then we’ll talk.
Writing is a fucking job. A REAL JOB. I go to work at 8 am and leave at 4 pm, which means I put in a full eight hour work day just like you do. Telling a writer to go out and get a real job is insulting and if you say it to the right person you’ll get your beak busted for it. If you’re confused by that, see #1. Or better yet, present your case to Stephen King.
Writing is a business. At some point in time a writer is going to have to talk to an editor, and agent, a publisher, or the local tax monster. We have to market our own work. We have contracts and forms to fill out and keep up with. And if we are moderately successful there’ll be the odd accountant to keep your eye on. Yes, it’s a business with all the fun and foibles that goes with it. And it too, is hard work. Or at least as fun as running an unlicensed daycare center.

Respect the author. Respect the craft. And by all means buy a book and appreciate the amount of time and love that was put into it. Writers don’t live on just air and daydreams. We like to eat.

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