There are those who wonder what the writer’s life is like, and those who think they know…but think wrong. I have met in person or corresponded with people who have such misguided notions as
~ Writers attend a series of literary teas where they exchange witty banter with other writers.
~ Writers jet all over the country and even the world giving speeches in exotic locales
~ Writers are rolling in wealth from hefty advances and fat royalty checks
~ Writers spend two hours a day writing and the rest of the day in such luxurious pursuits as getting spa treatments and having champagne lunches
~ Writers…well, that’s enough. You get the idea.
That’s some people’s dream. Are you ready to hear the reality?
~ Literary teas? Who has time? I’m too busy writing. (I’ve never been invited to a literary tea anyhow.) If I do get together with a friend over something potable, it’s more likely to be scotch as a prelude to dinner, and as far as witty banter, our conversation is much more likely to revolve around such pedestrian topics as our financial woes and, depending which friend has come over for dinner, her romantic troubles, his problems with people stealing wholesale quantities of mangoes from his trees, her problems with her grandchild…. Witty banter? I think not.
~ Jetting all over the world to give speeches in exotic locales? Most of my speeches have been local, although I have been to “exotic” New Jersey to give two speeches in the distant past. Then there was the time I showed up to give a speech (locally) only to find that not a single soul had come to hear it, this despite the fact that both the venue and I myself had done advance publicity. And as far as hopscotching the world by jet, my last trip (to Austin, in May, to judge a wordplay competition) culminated in an airline fiasco when severe storms in Dallas-Ft. Worth, where I was to change planes, grounded my flight, causing me to need to change not just planes but airlines (to one whose hub airport wasn’t DFW). I wound up spending half my day in Austin, waiting to get out of there, and half my day in Charlotte, waiting for a connecting flight that would finally bring me—very late, very tired, and very digusted, but oh so grateful to be back—home to South Florida.
~ Rolling in wealth from hefty advances and fat royalty checks? Ha! I struggle to meet my bills all month just like the rest of you, advances these days are becoming rarer and rarer, and the only thing in connection with my royalty checks that’s “fat” is the cost of the gas I put in the car on the drive to the bank.
~ Two hours a day writing? I typically put in 12-hour workdays, though it isn’t all spent literally writing. Besides writing, I also edit. Besides writing books, I also do other writing. Besides actually writing and editing, there is time involved in sending out manuscripts, keeping a log of what is where and what publisher is overdue to respond to a manuscript submission, publicizing and promoting my books, and the minutiae of administrivia that is part and parcel of the writing life. Not very glamorous and, unlike the writing itself, not that enjoyable either. And as for those spa treatments, unless you count the nail spa, a glorified nail salon that thinks that by attaching the word “spa” to its designation it can charge higher prices for filling my acrylics, I’ve never been in a spa in my life. (I’ve never even had a pedi. I can cut and polish my own damn toenails, thank you very much. I don’t need to pay exorbitant prices—or take more time away from my work—to sit and let someone else do what I am perfectly capable of doing myself.) Champagne lunches? I don’t particularly care for champagne to begin with, and besides, if I had any kind of alcohol for lunch, I’d be ruined for working for the rest of the day. My lunches are much more prosaic—an Italian hero, or a salad, or a couple of sausages. And the only beverage involved is my one Pepsi a day.
As you can see, there is nothing glamorous about my life at all…but for all that, I love it and wouldn’t trade lives with anyone. I love, love, LOOOOOOVE my life, love writing (love editing, too), and am grateful to have an ability from which I can make a living—hardly a fortune, but enough to pay the bills, even if I barely squeak by some months. My life is far from what some people imagine it to be, but there is nothing in the world I’d rather be doing.
How many people are fortunate enough to be able to say that? And the over-100 books I’ve had published (for further info go to www.cynthiamacgregor.com) are testament to the fact that hard work does pay off.
Speaking of which, I’d better get back to it. I have to finish editing a book today. The pressure is on. But believe me, that’s not a complaint!