Time Flies

All writers want to write. If you want to plumb or arch instead, then you’re in the wrong job. Invest your time in plumbing or archery. It’s not a vague fancy, a passing whim, it’s a vocation. It’s a basic need as important as air, food and access to a reliable broadband service. The mythical ‘they’ claim that everyone has a book inside of them, but many people don’t understand this basic truth of the writer’s yearning. That’s why many books are unreadable tosh. Or even worse, D*n Br*wn.

If you don’t want to write every day, you’re not a writer. My advice would be to find something else that eats away at your insides instead like being a defence lawyer or gargling with acid, because this is how it is when the stories need to be released . Writers have stories that burn inside them, little bundles of information that yearn to claw their way out and be seen by the world.

Sounds easy, right? Have the desire, put in the time, reap the rewards. The problem is that unless the writer is hugely successful they simply won’t have too much time to devote to the craft of writing. Life will get in the way. The kids will still need bathing and the bills will still need paying. For most that means a day job. Giving away those eight hours or so out of every twenty-four to an employer means that the writing gets shunted to the dark ends of the day when the mind is at its edgiest. Some would say that’s a good thing but even so it would be nice to have a choice.

Even for those writers who are fortunate (and fortune plays a huge part in it) to be able to make the break and write full time, they still won’t be able to commit all their working hours to their chosen creative art. There’s the small matter of promoting their work to be done. It’s no use writing the world’s most florid prose if nobody gets to read it, so for those at the bottom of the success ladder that can mean hours spent online telling the world about their work, formatting their self-published books, designing covers, chasing payment from third parties, keeping track of accounts… unless the author is scrupulous in their timekeeping these hours can soon build up until they take more time than the writing itself.

So, what do you do for a living? A full-time writer, you say?

There’s no such thing.

© Shaun Finnie 2012