You'll have to bear with me thoroughout this post. I am in the infuriating position of having almost decided to throw caution (and my pension) to the wind and make my living by my pen. However, several factors have given me pause. In no particular order:
1. I have the most atrocious handwriting, so living by my pen will not get me very far. 'Living by my keyboard' lacks the necessary romance of the grand gesture, quite apart from the risk that the phrase could risk people mistaking me for Rick Wakeman.
2. No-one wants to pay me for what I write. You don't. You wouldn't be reading blogs if you wanted to pay for reading matter. Quite right. Freedom of choice and all that. Not a lot of help to struggling hacks like myself, though. My last semi-pro gig was very enjoyable and the recording of the script went very well, but it's not going to be reflected in my pay cheque. (In fact, the person who recruited me for the job was reprimanded by senior management for using a member of staff to write rather than using volunteers throughout. I hope the final product vindicates us.)
3. Partly as a result of 2, I can't get an agent. This is a well-worn complaint of the unpublished writer, so much so that extraterrestrial observers hear it so often they think it is a mating call. I hope I'm not abducted, I could end up paired off with someone working on volume seventeen of a multi-layered science fantasy epic. That would clash horribly with my retro thriller ambitions. Imagine the children. No, don't. It's too horrible.
4. I've got writer's chilblains. Similar to writer's block, this is a self-inflicted condition caused by having all sorts of fine ideas for plotlines while nowhere near writing materials. When I come to set them down, the ones I can remember in any useful detail are trite and hackneyed and I get cold feet which soon becomes painful when drawn out over a long period of time.
5. When I do actually sit down and make myself write, reading it back it strikes me as the maunderings of a deranged mind.
All these things considered, I fear I shall have to stick to the day job. And for the benefit of those in the blogosphere, perhaps I should go back to wasting time on Facebook instead of trying to kickstart my writing on here.
Thank you for reading this far. I think you deserve a chocolate biscuit for making it to the end.
2 comments:
Can you reduce your hours and thus keep the benefits (!) of working whilst having more writing time? Can you take a sabbatical? Please may I have a bourbon biscuit?
That is one option, yes. (No, have two bourbons, go on.) The problem is that we are so short-staffed it might be better for everyone else if I just go and they recruit another full-timer, rather than trying to get someone in for, say, one day a week while I sit at home drinking tea and failing to work out my subplots. I'd be lynched if I asked for a sabbatical.
Still, look on the bright side: I might get sacked. ;-)
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