So here I am again, in the valley of a long series of peaks and valleys. Like most writers, I do not live a linear life. Linear — that mathematical “straight” line summed up by a series of experiences that happen at specific milestones. Grade school, high school, college. College sweetheart. Internship. Job. Marriage. 2.5 kids and a dog. First house. First divorce. Second job. And so on.
If you’re a writer or any other creative, chances are you do not live in a world made up of straight lines and right angles. We do things that don’t make sense to most people. We live in a world made up of daydreams and the occasional pot o’ gold because that is who we are and we’re usually fine with it — until something bad happens that reminds us that we still have to live in the so-called real world.
What is real? Is it living up to someone else’s expectations or your own? Do we have to put blinders on and move forward no matter what? Sure, there’s this little thing called “money” that we all have to deal with — I’ll never go back to eating mac ‘n’ cheese — but money is a flow. It’s a kind of a “chi” that we can get anywhere, but we have to block out the voices to focus on it, which can be hard when all you want to do is lock yourself in a room and hibernate through the winter with a tall glass of Guinness.
I remember the first time I talked to writer C.J. Henderson, who you may remember wrote Baby’s First Mythos. CJ is a personable fellow, but a very realistic writer who has lived several lifetimes like many of the rest of us.
Since (a real fact coming up) out of all the people in America who actually make money from writing, only some 6% of them actually manage to support themselves entirely from such endeavors, C.J., like the grand majority of his peers, has had to come up with other ways to rake in the miscellaneous dollar or two. In his time, he has earned his keep and kicked around as a: movie house manager, waiter, drama coach, fast food jockey, interior painter, blackjack dealer, book reviewer, stockman, English teacher, roadie, advertising salesman, creative writing instructor, supernatural investigator, bank guard, storage coordinator, children’s theater director, card shark, film critic, dishwasher, magazine editor, traffic manager, short-order cook, stand-up comic, interview & general article writer; toy salesman, camp counselor, movie booker, street mime, lounge lizard and as a senior editor of legal publications at Matthew Bender & Co., Inc. — Source: C.J. Hendersen’s Biography
The trouble with the writer’s life is that it “seems” like everyone else “has it all.” That whole “grass is always greener” thing. Right. Is it? Out of the untold numbers of people I’ve told what I enjoy doing, either someone responded with — “Oh, I’m a writer, too? Here’s this story I wrote in high school.” Or better yet, “What have you written? Well, unless you’re published here, here and here you’re not a real writer.” Yeah, sure. Because literary journals get more readers than mass market fiction. Uh-huh. Sure. Then there are the polar ends of the bell curve; the people that admire us and the people that talk down to us because we refuse to walk in a straight line.
When we’re faced with other people’s voices, sometimes we allow them to infect us; we forget our bug spray and those negative words bite us in the back of the head, rousing our own, inner demons.
Taming the Inner Beasts that Say “You Can’t Write.”
My friends, my fellow scribers, the only thing barring any writer from having an outstanding life is ourselves. We don’t fit in a routine because we are the researchers of the routine also known as “life’s experiment.” Our work, whether we want it to be or not, is the unconscious social commentary of our time. Without out, there is regurgitation. There is garbage, spawned by algorithms from machines with no souls. From the shortest piece of flash fiction to the longest game (*cough* Ptolus), one day sociologists and every other “ologist” imaginable will be studying why something was created — not just what was consumed — just as they do now for our predecessors.
Unfortunately, that is what “will be” and we all have to deal with the present. What is the present? Well, we have two things that I believe every writer must do. We have to take care of ourselves and we have to take care of each other; two, very tall orders for people who are natural-born thinkers and not necessarily doers.
I often follow Poewar.com as a resource because of the site’s internet-savviness, usability and content. Lately, the site has been publishing a series of articles (written by writer John Hewitt) that really spell out the name of each individual demon we writers face and a way to fight it back. I highly recommend you go read these articles and then do something nice for yourself today. Seriously.
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