Another Sweaty Day… And Diana Gives Herself a Bitchslap Pep Talk

Four pages on Sunday. There. Sven’s off my back for now…

Stephanie Tyler’s post yesterday was very inspiring to me. I have so many writing friends who write under the most difficult of circumstances: family issues, health issues, time issues. There are a million reasons that pull us away from it, but if we really want it, we’ll do it. We’ll give up all kinds of things.

I’m reminded of Stephen King’s masterful speech at the National Book Foundation a few years back. No, not the part where he told the snobs to get over themselves and go read some Patrick O’Brian (though, man, I love that part so much). The part where he talks about how he and his family were living in a trailer and desperately needed $300 bucks, which would pay for ten weeks of groceries, but to get it, King would have to take on extra work as a debate coach and have less time to write, and his wife said no. Whatever it took, he needed to write.

A couple of months ago, I posted about what I think it takes to write full time, and some people chose to take me to task for that. To which I still blow a big, fat raspberry. (Actually, what I really want to write takes seven letters and a space.) I don’t know if they thought I was being sarcastic or what, but I assure you, I wasn’t. This is not an easy business. There’s no guarantee, and no security. And if you don’t think that takes major sacrifices, you’re dead wrong. You need to have a plan, you need to have a fallback plan, and you need to be willing to implement them. And whether that means picking up freelance articles or ghostwriting or technical work or a couple shifts a week at your local Starbucks or a full time job… what is it going to take? Does it mean you take the debate coach job and forget about sleeping so you can write? Or does it mean you pass on the job and live on ramen noodles so you can write? Because you gotta write. It’s the constant.

What’s it take? Writing on vacation? Skipping vacations? Re-fashioning your life so you can live on less money so you can quit that second job or do without the overtime? Or without the job altogether? Turning down the promotion so you’d have more time to write? Becoming a vegetarian because you can’t afford meat and health insurance? Quitting smoking because you realized it was the only thing holding back your budget from balancing as a freelancer? Losing your job because you have a writing commitment? Losing a relationship because of it? Waking up at four a.m. every morning? Pulling all-nighters once a week? Getting shingles?

I know writers who have done every single one of those. Some gladly, some reluctantly, some accidentally. And the thing that they have in common is that in every single case, they chose writing. Writing is the art; the writing life is all about pragmatism.

The flip side is, it’s easy to look at what other people do and feel guilty. I look at Steph and I’m thinking: I don’t have a kid who needs my time, let alone a special-needs kid who needs constant care; I don’t have chronic migraine; I don’t have this issue, I don’t have that issue. So why am I not producing as many books as she is? Why am I not writing MORE? Which is why it’s great that she wrote:

Don’t compare your output to anyone else’s – only compete with yourself because that’s what has to happen once you do get published. No one but you should be in your view. You will only slow yourself down if you worry about everyone else. If you want it, once you finally tell yourself, I want it, and nothing’s going to stop me, well, that’s something no one can take away from you.

It’s like when we were kids and were told that we needed to finish our dinner, because there were starving kids in the world. We need to write this much because there are writers in the world who don’t have this opportunity. But that’s not true. We need to write because we have this opportunity — whether it’s all day or thirty minutes at four a.m. We made it for ourselves and we have an obligation to ourselves to use it.

We can’t think about other writers here, because if we start thinking along that path, and then, lo — that opportunity gets taken away, how much easier will it be to just say, “Oh well.” Oh well, how can I write now? I used to have all day to write, but now I have a job/kid/other timesuck and I can’t. Or to say, I’d write if only I was in her situation? I’d write if I had all day.

I feel that temptation all the time. I feel the temptation to say, “Well, I had a busy day/week/month; I’ve been out of town, I had health issues; I have a wedding plan; my book just came out.” But I do know that’s bull. I know it because when SB comes home and says, “How many pages did you write today?” I feel obligated to come back with a nice, fat number. Trust that twisty feeling in your gut, Di.

Which is why I do like hearing about the the other writers. I do like hearing about how Nora Roberts says to put yourself in a box with just the story and close the lid, or how Alison Kent is scribbling notes outside her kids’ Girl Scout meetings or Gena Showalter is talking into a tape recorder everywhere she goes or Stephen King doesn’t get up from his desk chair until he has ten single spaced pages. But I’m not comparing myself to them; I’m inspired by them. Not who they are and what they have on their plate while still writing, but that they are writing. They chose writing. And I can do it, too. Everyday.

I have. I chose it when I left the town all my friends lived in to go work for a newspaper. I chose it when I spent money I didn’t have to go to my first RWA conference, staying with a friend in town because I couldn’t afford the hotel fees. I chose it when, day after day, I spent my budgeted “entertainment” money on computer time in internet cafes in Australia so I’d have my book typed in time for the Golden Hearts, or when I hiked for three hours into suburbia in Auckland to get my Alphasmart repaired in the only place in Oceania that could fix them, and when it broke for good, found out that a pen and paper worked just as well. We were staying in this place that gave us free plates of pasta with our tent spots, or, for three or four dollars extra, we could “upgrade” to chicken or burgers or etc. I chose to use my three dollars on computer time, and I ate pasta every night for a month. I chose writing in 2005, when I woke up every morning, wrote in a notebook on the Metro on the way to work, at lunch every day at a little table at Teaism in Dupont Circle, on the Metro on the way home, and then at a computer that evening while I was cooking dinner, and then started again the next day.

That’s the writer I am. I have these proofs, and more. I know how to choose writing. And so I do.

Off to sweat.