Slaving away at a hot keyboard
I've recently taken up temporary residence in a new town in North Carolina. It's all very pleasant, but one of the consequences of this move is that I'm frequently faced with the embarrassment of having to explain to strangers what I do for a living.
I say embarrassment, because it's never easy admitting that you're a writer. Most people, when hearing this information (especially since I am in a strongly Republican town), look at me as if I've just told them that I spend my entire day picking my toenails. Then, when they come to realise that this "writing" is how I actually earn my keep, they look at me as if I've just told them I even get paid for picking my toenails. They quickly assume that my life is an eternal tea-break, interrupted only by brief calls to my agent, long nights of dangerously determined drinking and occasional trips to the bank to cash royalty cheques.
Sadly, they're wrong. Please don't think I'm complaining here. I've wanted to be able to call myself a writer ever since I realised that I couldn't sing, I was tone deaf and there was consequently no chance that I was going to become the next Mick Jagger. What's more, I love my lifestyle. I don't have a boss, I can take lunch when I want, and if I want to spend the afternoon strolling around the park that's all to the good because "it will help me think".
However, there are two things I've come to accept about the privilege of calling myself a writer. First, that unless there's some kind of 1929-style apocalypse in the housing market I'm never going to be able to afford my own home. Second, that I'm going to have to work damn hard.
Of course, as a writer of toilet books and blogs I'm right at the bottom of the scale as far as the difficulties of the writer's life go. Not for me the emotional angst of creating a novel: the crippling self-doubt and anxiety that go hand in hand with the exhausting exhilaration of creation. Not for me the pain of writer's block, the fear of the well running dry and the need to earn my coin flipping burgers while I wait for the world to catch up with my genius.
All the same, there are considerable challenges. When I'm approaching deadlines, it's not unusual that I have to work a 12-hour day, seven days a week. Even at the best of times it's rare for me to take an entire weekend off. The odd scraps of the various things I have to do to keep above board are never quite finished... And copy-editing on a Sunday is no fun, let me tell you. Plus there's the fact that I can never really leave my work behind, like office people do... Plus there's the publicity I have to do to once I've actually finished a project... Plus...
It's always around this stage in my self-justificatory soliloquies that an internal voice interrupts me. "Yer tit!" it remarks in a strong Yorkshire accent. I realise I'm just like the playwright in the Monty Python sketch who complains to his miner son about the hardships of flying to Paris, "sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and then getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer".
In short, I understand that I'm a silly arse and really should stop moaning. Earning a living as a writer may be hard, but compared to most people I am fortunate indeed.
Now, I could type more, but if you'll excuse me, I think I won't. As I write this, it's just gone half past one. Generally at this stage in the afternoon I like to spend three hours making myself a sandwich.
