Glamour and Glitz versus Hammer and Spits

The sky took a giant white dump on us, my friends, then farted negative thirty degree arctic winds right into our faces. I couldn’t even see where the driveway ran across our front yard. Where was the gravel? Where was the grass? I didn’t know. I had only a vague recollection of how our driveway meandered through our yard. And yet I had to get up and get dressed and go to work anyway.

There were two main reasons I started this website. One, I wanted a platform to document my 52 Week Story Challenge journey. I needed a base camp, a ground zero, a forward operating base, a Kennedy Space Center . . . whatever you want to call it. Some place I could write my stories, post my stories, and talk about my stories.

The other reason for this website was to have a blog. (Man I hate that word—blog! It’s right up with there with yark! and fester! and mucus! Jibbly jibbly jibbly.) As gross as it sounds though, I also needed a place to talk about writing and life, a place to celebrate and rant and let off steam every now and again.

Somebody on Facebook said it felt like January 74th already. I couldn’t agree more. It’s been a long month so far, and subzero temperatures aren’t helping any. “Spring is right around the corner . . . ?” If it is, it’s a dark corner in downtown Chicago, at two in the morning, and Spring is poking a gun in your back and asking for your wallet. I just don’t trust these seasons anymore.

Maybe it’s the winter blues, but I haven’t done anything all month so far. Here it is, the 74th day of January, and I’ve got nothing to show for it writing-wise. I’ve been to the gym a lot though. My wife bought me a membership to the Y for Christmas and I’ve taken advantage of it so far. Yay, good for me! Just wish all that effort showed up on the bathroom scale is all. So far, nada.

I remember starting this writing journey years ago with rainbows and fairies and visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. “I’m gonna write a best seller. Yeah! And I’m gonna sell if for a million bucks. Yeah! And I’m gonna keep writing one best-seller after another and finally live the kind of life I’ve always dreamed about. Yeah!”

It ain’t glamour and glitz, baby, I can assure you.

I had to get over some pretty big delusions and misconceptions about what this life would really be like. It took a couple of years for me to come to terms with them. Once I did, I was totally cool about it. Here are just a few of the dreamy-eyed notions I started out with:

1. I can quit my day job
2. I can sit around the house all day and write in my pajamas
3. The Muse will visit me every day and fill my head with amazing ideas
4. I’ll have so many amazing ideas, I won’t know what to do with them all
5. My stories will be so awesome that my Facebook page and website will probably crash from all the fan traffic
6. Hunned dolla bills, baby

So what are the realities of writing? Here they are:

1. You’re going to need the day job to pay the bills and keep food on the table and put medicine in the cabinet for when the kids get sick. Contrary to popular notions, the idea of writing on an empty stomach in the back of your van that you’re living in down by the river is NOT romantic.
2. Okay I actually do sometimes write in my pajamas. But that’s only on the weekends, and only after all the other chores get done that I didn’t have time to take care of during the rest of the week. It’s actually kind of rare that I get time to write on the weekends. Weekends belong to my wife and my kids. My writing time during the week consists of me sneaking away from the office on my lunch hour and heading to the library.
3. The Muse isn’t real. It’s a made-up delusion, probably by some hack who needed someone or something to blame because he was too lazy to get any writing done. “I can’t write today, my Muse has abandoned me.” While it’s true that sometimes great ideas pop unexpectedly into your head from seemingly out of nowhere, it’s not a supernatural phenomenon.
4. At least for me, good ideas are HARD. Maybe it’s because I try too hard. I get a little idea and immediately dismiss it. “Nah,” I say. “Been done already.” Or, “Too lame.” Or more often, “I could never do it justice.” I overthink it. I’m also hard to please, and a perfectionist. So probably a lot of decent ideas leave me behind and move along to the next writer who’s willing to work with them.
5. Ha ha ha! Hee! Oh boy. Gimme a minute to wipe the laughing tears out of my eyes. I actually did think that back when I launched this website in October 2018 (three whole months ago). I’ll launch my site, and put in a bunch of cool key words, and use SEO, then Google and Facebook will just throw people at my website. Everyone will read my stuff and I’ll have so many comments I won’t even have time to respond to them all. Ha ha ha! Hee! There I go again . . . hold on a sec. Listen, having your own website is cool and all, but seriously, all you have to do is browse through this site to see I’m in no danger of crashing the WWW anytime soon. Rest assured that the innernet is not gonna asplode from all my fan traffic.
6. I actually did get paid once for a story. Back when I first started, I won a local writing contest and they gave me a $25 gift card to Max & Erma’s. I was ecstatic. The wife and I had a fun date night to celebrate. That was seven years ago. I haven’t received a dime for any of my stories since then.

Turns out writing is really hard work. Who knew? Me, that’s who; it only took me seven years to figure it out and come to terms with it, that’s all. January 74th, 2019 marks the beginning of year numero ocho. This writing life is definitely more hammers than glamours, and if you don’t absolutely love writing for the sheer sake of writing, then you might as well not even start. If you love it—really, truly love it—you’ll do it anyway. Not everyone can, which, in my humble opinion, is what makes it so special. Not everyone can sing like Aguilera, play like 2Cellos, dance like Twitch, or paint like Warhol. But I can write like me, and you can do something like you.

So go do that voodoo that you do so well. And keep doing it, because it’s hard, because you love it. And please for the love of all that’s glorious and holy, stay warm while you do it.