EXCUSES, EXCUSES

I go to bed at around 5 in the afternoon, get up between 12 and 2 in the morning, work till 5 in the afternoon with few breaks . . . Okay, I forgot to blog and I had a brilliant topic in mind a few days ago, but I don't remember what it was.

Whenever I'm asked what I do for a living and I say I'm a writer, I seem to get responses such as, "I'm going to write a book," "I've got a great idea for a book," "You won't believe what happened to me when I was abducted in Mongolia," or "If I tell you the best plot for a book, will you write it for me." I am assuming this last question really means that if I write a book I'll get to share the humongous profits "the best plot" is bound to command.

Why am I blathering about this? Because I really do think a lot of people would like to see their stories in print. A lot of people would like to be writers and they actually dream about getting into this glamorous business.

Please, please, help me here. WHY do apparently normal people think it would be cool to keep the kind of hours I do (and large numbers of writers have strange creative hours), have to schedule showers into each morning, put the time for breakfast in a day book, pass up one or both of the hour shows you really enjoy each week, and be awake when you planned to sleep because you can't stop plotting? Woohoo, really glamorous. Imagine the thrill of owning a mind that doesn't shut down, not at all.

And the clothes one gets to wear to work, the coiffeurs, the makeup job. I love this blue chenille bathrobe (It's almost one in the afternoon, you say? What does that have to do with anything? My green and yellow Alladin shaped slippers are always eyecatching. Note the hair. It is not crewcut, don't be rude. I slept it into this shape and it has a certain panache. You, too, could have this do:)

Enough horsing around. I would write if all that remained of me was a pair of hands and a brain. Without the hands, I'd hope for a mouth and use Dragon, voice activated software. I do write come rain or come shine, hell or highwater and any other appropriate cliche could be inserted here. Why? Because despite the lack of glamour in the everyday life of a writer, there is nothing like the thrill of reading a sentence, paragraph, scene, or chapter, sitting back and thinking, "That's not bad." Sure, you'll tweak it here and there but if you're smart, you won't pare the words down until they're flat and too sparse.

When a reader says, "You've entertained me for hours," I get a warm feeling all over and I grin like an idiot. When someone says, "Your books are too scary," or "sexy" or "graphic and I don't think you should use bad language," the smile stays on my face and my mind slips away to a place where life is often less real than real life, because real life is too scary, kinky, cruel, graphic and filled with foul language for me. I go into my own storyland.

I could keep going with this but I'll give you a well-earned break (if you've managed to read this all the way through:). If you think you want to write, do it. Don't wait to have enough time, or until the children leave home, or (perish) until you don't have to earn a living--just do it. Get out your day book and ink (not pencil) in those writing hours. Early morning, late evening, sitting in your car in a parking lot, whatever.

Good luck--we readers hope to see your name in bookstores soon,


Stella

I would love to read your comments on writing and reading. If you are purely a reader (you lovely person, you) how have you visualized the writer's life? If you're a writer and have what you consider a "normal" life--why do you think that?