The Lifestyle

There are a lot of reasons why I want to be a professional writer. The most important reasons include my love of reading and storytelling, the need I feel sometimes to get ideas on paper, the sheer audacity of creating something that didn't exist before. These are the things that drive me forward into this career. But there are other aspects of a writing life that I enjoy, the icing on the cake.

One of these is the writing lifestyle. If you ask ten different authors how they write, you're likely to get eleven different answers. Some adhere to a strict 9 to 5 schedule; some write only in the mornings, in the afternoons, at night, weekdays only, every day. The point is, this is a career that does not require a set schedule. In some ways, it doesn't even require a set amount of progress, although there are Deadlines. The work is entirely up to the individual, and the results are what matters.

There was a time in my life that I had all the free time I could have wished for. But I accomplished very little writing. I think the reason is because at that time, I had never really worked a standard 9 to 5 job. I didn't have the discipline that comes from needing to meet deadlines, from being responsible for a certain amount of work, and not getting time off just whenever I felt like it.

Now, I'm balancing my writing with a day job--one that I very much like, and one that I devote a lot of time and energy to. Yet I'm getting more writing done than ever. I get up at 4:30 every morning and get to Panera at 6am for ninety minutes of writing, every weekday. That's not a lot of time every day, but it's more than I was doing when I had no responsibilities.

I always regret having to leave the restaurant and return to normal life. I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be responsible only to myself and my writing on a daily basis. I picture myself in Manhattan, maybe, showing up at the door of an East Village coffeeshop the minute it opens and writing until noon. Then I take a walk, do some reading or some revising, get caught up on the clerical side of writing by doing submissions, blogging, and (dare I dream?) maybe answering fan mail. The evenings would be my own.

But I see myself spending a little time in the evenings too, and I see the writing encroaching into my weekends. Or maybe I'll have a hard time filling the days. What I've done over this past year is to build up the pressure to write, and then stuff it into a 90 minute container. The question is, what will happen if it's let out of that container? Will it expand to fill all available space? Or will the pressure die off?

Either way, that time is far in the future, and by then, I'll have probably built up even more pressure. Years ago, I had a little taste of what the lifestyle could be like, but I didn't have the discipline to make use of it. Now, if I want it back, I'm going to have to earn it.

The Day Job

Confession: The more successful I become in my day job, the less I feel like I writer. I hate that.

Reading:

• "My Brother Eli" by Joseph Epstein
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"

Revising:

• "The Revenant"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

First off, if you're interested in seeing pictures from the reading, there is a slide show available here. Don't expect to see me right away, or very much at all, for that matter. I read sixth out of seven, and by that time, they got tired of taking pictures. In fact, most of the pictures during my segment are of the crowd. At least they don't look altogether too bored.

Second, I'm going to make a departure from my usual format and expand upon the day's confession. I'm at the end of day three of a four day work trip, and it has gone very well. Like most trips, the real work will start when I get back and am in a position to follow up on everything that has transpired in my absence, and will transpire as a result of the trip.

As you might imagine, almost all of my "brain space" is filled with it, and I have had no time for writing lately. In fact, as I have noted in the past, sometimes this blog entry is the only writing or writing-related activity I do during the day. I expected that to be the case this week, but I did not anticipate how much that would bother me.

For months now, I have been going to Panera every morning for an hour or two of writing. I use the term loosely, as sometimes I'm actually just reading, or editing, or even thinking, but regardless, that was my writing time, and I could then go to work confident that I had already devoted time to my "real" job.

But today, at the end of my third day without that release, I'm starting to feel very isolated from that lifestyle. Sure, I'll be flying back home tomorrow, and I'll have all weekend to get it out of my system, and maybe get some narrative down for "Ferian." (I'm only in the outline stages now.) Still, at the moment, it's a very uncomfortable feeling.

And I'll tell you why. The more involved in my day job I get, the more I start to define myself by it. It's a subtle thing, insidious even. There's a certain comfort in being in a ready-made position. It may not fit me perfectly, but it fits well, like a suit right off the rack. I could visually myself doing this long term, and I very well might.

Writing, however, is a job that I'm trying to create for myself. It's like I'm building a house, but I already live in a very serviceable apartment. During weeks like this, I don't get to leave that metaphorical apartment, and I start to wonder why I need a house at all. Especially since I'm looking out the metaphorical window of that metaphorical house and realizing that the work I've done so far, which seems so significant up close, dwindles to nothing from this vantage point.

I feel like I've lost the metaphor, so I will explain. When I'm cut off from all the reasons that I love to write, it seems foolish to go to so much work for so little potential gain.

The thing is, I know that when I get back to Bohemia (damn, I still love the name of that town), I will settle back into my daily habit and the feeling will almost certainly return. But even in my own blog, I can't manage to get rid of that "almost," which means that there is a slight sliver of doubt. And that's what's bothering me.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3