Writing Life

The most important thing to do if you want to be a writer is to write. Sounds obvious, but it’s not easy cramming a career into a full life. Most writers have a day job. If you think stay at home mothers don’t work then you’ve never been there, done that.

I planned to write fiction as my second career. I’d study craft and write, study craft and read; well you can see the pattern. Eventually, as the first of my efforts were published, to great acclaim, I’d be ready to quit my day job.

You know about life, right? It’s what happens while you’re busy making plans. I have a new day and night job. Did I quit writing? Nope. But it’s slowed me down.

Other factors slow down productivity too. I’m much more critical of all writing, especially mine. I kind of miss the days when I banged happily away at the keyboard every morning before leaving for work. So what if every fifth word was and? I was having fun.

There are writers who, from their accounts of their daily schedule, whistle while they work. Marketable prose flying from their fingertips. I don’t read them.

The writers I read work damn hard crafting easy reading.