Dec. 02, 2002
I gave up reading “writing self-help” books back in June when I realised that nothing gets done by reading and talking but only by doing what works for you.
However, a few months ago I snuck one in and for me, it blew all the others out of the water. The reason? It took all the romance and dream dust out of writing and made the whole process real. Something I’ve tried to do here.
With Stephen King’s On Writing, I found myself nodding as I read, laughing at parts and squishing my brow in others. There are no dreamy words, no mention magic boxes nor is there any talk of “morning pages.” Instead, he uses every day language and sentences with words like “fart” which, surprisingly, had more impact on me than any other book filled with wistful reminiscing ever did.
Reading this book reminded to keep things real; something I sometimes forget to do when I read some of the e-mail I receive. E-mail such as, “My life sucks right now, if only I could write full-time it would be perfect!” or “I could write a novel if only I had a cabin by the sea and an uninterrupted year.” Better yet, “I would be in a state of eternal bliss if only I could wear my boa, drink tea, and write all day, every day.”
I realise with e-mails like those that I perhaps ignore some of the reality of my life. Things such as the isolation is far too much for me to bear as I learned when I chatted up the UPS man for twenty minutes one day. I don’t like to write every day in fact, if I try to write every day I don’t want to write for a month. I work on a schedule – Tuesday through Friday with weekends off – although I don’t work on a consistent time base which throws my body off kilter a lot. Sometimes I work from 11PM until 10AM for days straight; sometimes I work for only two hours each day. I don’t drink that much tea. Money matters which makes me budget everything like mad and constantly check the balance in my Microsoft Money Program. Sometimes the pressure to make money at writing takes away any of the passion I had when I didn’t have to earn a living from it. I really enjoy my life and what I get to do, but writing isn’t what I want to do for the rest of my life – as I have other ambitions such as being a vagabond again and running a bed and breakfast in France.
Writing isn’t my only passion. I wrote more when I held a three week temporary Christmas job than I did the three months previous; having all the time to write I did anything but. I have days where I feel like useless crap and don’t write anything and then suffer great guilt because of it. That is when I wish I had some papers to staple just so I would feel productive. Writing in Pajamas makes me feel frumpy instead of lucky. Writing, and working on my own terms is bloody hard work. It’s a business, something I didn’t think about when I started.
It’s easy when you’re sitting in a grey cube with a boss who wants you in at seven and out at six and a headache that matches your stress level to assume that if only you could live your dream of writing/painting/singing twenty-four seven would life truly be good. But the reality is sometimes living your dream sucks. Sometimes it’s hard, frustrating, overwhelming. Sometimes you’ll hate it just as much as if you were sitting in a pantsuit with an eight o’clock meeting. If you keep your dream in a dream state, you’ll never get anywhere because you’ll be sinking in disappointment when you get it. I’ve learned through trial and error that being real with your wants, expectations and outcomes is what makes living a dream possible.
You have to get real to make it work whether that be by just doing what you want, understanding what really happens, or using words like “fart” in your sentences.
Dreams are good to have but reality, so much better.