The Reality of Being a Writer

All of us who have ever dreamed of being a full-time, professional writer, have always had an idealised vision of what that life would look like. We imagined limos and autographs, dining in Michelin-starred restaurants, and living in a luxury apartment in Manhattan, or in a windswept cottage with a sea view.

There’s nothing wrong with having fantasies about your writer’s life. Dreams are essential to both the creative process and to setting goals, albeit unrealistic ones. Most of us when we were starting out never met a ‘real’ writer. We based our image of the writer’s life on TV or movie characters. Sometimes, we’d go by writer’s biographies.

The problem is that these images are a filtered response to one person’s reality. When we watch a TV series like ‘Castle’ featuring extremely successful author Richard Castle, we see the screenwriter’s fantasy of what the creative novelist’s life is like.

In my own case, the reality is very different. And the truth is that there are far more writers like me than those who resemble Stephen King or JK Rowling. We have had some success, published a book or two, a few articles, and some short stories, but we’re far from rich or famous.

If you started writing because all those things — gushing fans and unlimited wealth — were the most important to you, you may well feel let down by reality. I have mentioned before about the man who attended my writers’ group for a few weeks. He was unquestionably talented, if unwilling to accept the need to edit anything. The big break came when he asked how much he could expect to earn as a novelist. I recited the most recent, and disappointing, statistics. I never saw him again. I could only conclude that he saw writing as nothing more than a means to a (rich) end, rather than being an end in itself.

Somewhere between our first success and the passage of time, we start to see what our career will really look like. That doesn’t mean a sudden success cannot shoot a typical genre writer into the stratosphere, but it does make it less likely. For myself, I like being anonymous. I wouldn’t mind being rich, but you can’t miss what you never had. I like walking down the street unrecognised except by my neighbours. All of which brings me to my point:

If you are a writer from the soles of your feet to the spray on your hair, your goal is to write. It may take you some time to figure that out. That’s okay. Perhaps you will be one of the lucky few to see your dreams come true, as well as knowing the fulfillment of writing every day.

The important thing to remember about writing, the single truth that is the same for all of us: writing is work. Yes, it may be easier for some people than others, but it remains work. And it’s the work that matters. Everything else is frippery.

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