IWSG: Real Writers Don’t Talk, They Write
It's the first Wednesday of the month, which means hundreds of us will be posting about our insecurities. If you're a writer, join in!
An interesting woman joined our writer's group several years in, showing up one day with her fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.
She didn't really fit in with our typical writer attire, but that was okay. Everyone was welcome.
At the time, my job was to greet new people and make them feel at home. Within five minutes of meeting her, I'd heard all about the book she was writing. In detail.
It continued every time she came to a meeting. For months...and months...and months. I soon realized she likely hadn't written more than a few chapters of that book and never would. She just wanted to be seen as a writer. You know the type.
The problem with writing is that it's a fairly private endeavor. It's you, sitting in front of your computer, putting words on paper. You do that day after day after day until one day you have a novel. You should look like this:
And not like this:
It's even worse now that people can self-publish. While there are plenty of talented writers who publish their own books, there are also quite a few blowhards who do it for party conversation.
The sad thing is, nobody really cares. Trust me. Every cent I make comes from writing and nobody ever wants to hear me talk about it. If you ask me what I do for a living, I'll tell you, but I'm not going to tell you every detail of everything I've written in the past month. Which brings me to my point...
Most real writers don't talk about our work. We're too busy doing it.
Have you ever found yourself stuck in a conversation you couldn't get out of? What did you do?
An interesting woman joined our writer's group several years in, showing up one day with her fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.
She didn't really fit in with our typical writer attire, but that was okay. Everyone was welcome.
At the time, my job was to greet new people and make them feel at home. Within five minutes of meeting her, I'd heard all about the book she was writing. In detail.
It continued every time she came to a meeting. For months...and months...and months. I soon realized she likely hadn't written more than a few chapters of that book and never would. She just wanted to be seen as a writer. You know the type.
The problem with writing is that it's a fairly private endeavor. It's you, sitting in front of your computer, putting words on paper. You do that day after day after day until one day you have a novel. You should look like this:
And not like this:
It's even worse now that people can self-publish. While there are plenty of talented writers who publish their own books, there are also quite a few blowhards who do it for party conversation.
The sad thing is, nobody really cares. Trust me. Every cent I make comes from writing and nobody ever wants to hear me talk about it. If you ask me what I do for a living, I'll tell you, but I'm not going to tell you every detail of everything I've written in the past month. Which brings me to my point...
Most real writers don't talk about our work. We're too busy doing it.
Have you ever found yourself stuck in a conversation you couldn't get out of? What did you do?
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