Tomfoolery

Isn't that word AWESOME! Props to Christie for using it and props to me for stealing it for my own blog post.

I tried to upload an adorable image of an english sheepdog with so much POOF you couldn't see his eyes. Bless his heart. Now I know how Trinity feels about the uploading picture thing.

Okay, so to continue Christie's line of thought from last week, I'm going to talk about sorta the same thing. How amazingly easy it is to pen a novel and get it published and be in LOVE with the entire process!! I mean who doesn't love waiting for months upon months for that 'We really liked your work but..." letter that shatters all your hopes. Are you perched on the edge of your chairs? Don't be...that was completely tongue in cheek and I don't want you to be disappointed in the long run.

Now, let me apologize upfront to my friend who probably won't appreciate being the subject of this discussion but she is a perfect illustration of what Christie was so delicately pointing out.

There are very few people who know I live the secret life of a tortured writer. In a nutshell, I agree with Trinity - it's just easier than having to explain (or in our case - DEFEND) what we are trying to accomplish. Smirks, snide remarks, and basic school yard bullying is just not worth it. But when I'm published, I'll be wearing that badge for all the world to see and God help whoever decides to open their mouth because I have 32 years of pent up anger just waiting to be released.

My friend went to see a multi-published best selling author, one whose books are ALWAYS made into major motion pictures, speak when he was here in town recently. The next day she explained to me how disappointed she was in him. What? Come again. MULTI-PUBLISHED. BEST SELLING. MOVIES. I see nothing to be disappointed in.

She explains that she got the feeling that he just wrote books to have them made into movies. I tried to explain the writing is a business. Oh, sure it can be a hobby, but the truly dedicated souls that slave night after night while their family is off in fairy dream land know, they know, it's one of the most competitive businesses probably in the world.

For most, we write because it is what we are made to do. I wrote my first short story in the third grade. We were asked to write a paper on what would happen if the sun suddenly decided not to shine. I turned in a five page story. FIVE PAGES and I was EIGHT. Why do I remember this? Because later I would realize that was when I knew what I was supposed to do and that was write.

I am sure there are authors who don't give a rats ass about what they are doing, they were somehow blessed with a natural ability to plot and form sentences that make marketable manuscripts, but I bet they are fewer than we think in the fiction world. This particular author might well be one of those few but who cares? When it all comes down, it is still a business.

You write because you can. You publish because you either have a great agent that pushes your work endlessly or when a tired editor happens to read your manuscript while drunk and you sign the contract before she sobers up. I'm kidding, but I think you understand our chances are slim, slim, slim. Luck has to play a huge part.

After you publish, you hope for a movie deal (insert snicker) but you don't wait for that because you are already pounding away on another manuscript that you hope keeps the publisher interested enough to give you some heavy marketing or you end up at a bookstore with only your fellow spanksters alternating autograph requests with sympathy shining in their eyes.

And guess what? You write that next book with the same damn dogged determination that I had when I penned that short story when I was eight. Not because you can, but because you have to. At least for me. It's like OCD. Gotta write. Gotta write. Gotta write.

Sometimes I'm so sick of it I quit. Stop writing for months but I always go back. Because I have a story to tell. Because Muse Bob won't stop nagging about how much time we are wasting reading and blogging and youtubing when we could be producing. And then you go to meetings and hear things like "Five thousand dollar" advance for first time authors and I want to throw my laptop off the roof. Do they know how much time I spent on this thing? Anyone done the math? Is that kind of pay even legal?

It shouldn't be about the money, but how can it not be in the long run? It's a business. I don't live in a village where other people pay my mortgage because I need to finish my manuscript. I'll take that advance but you can damn well bet I'm gonna make sure my next work is worth a hell of a lot more. And more after that.

We can't work two jobs forever, and that's exactly what writing is for me. A second job. I love it (and hate it) but I spend hours a day plotting and planning and penning words that float around in my head all day long.

It all boils down to this for me: don't make a judgement call against a successful author because he has the talent to turn books into movies because then you are judging me.

I have six, seven if you count the trash I wrote in high school, manuscripts. Some complete. Others still in progress. I have a book of poetry I began in middle school. I have a notebook that I literally use rubber bands to hold together full of ideas I may never use.

Yet...

I have never won a contest. I have never been offered a publishing deal. I don't have agents beating down my door throwing Range Rovers in my face begging to represent me.

Until you've walked the world seven times over in my shoes don't tell me what writing should be about. Sometimes I hate the words I've written. Hate the characters I've created but if someone wants to buy something I hate, then heck yeah, I'm gonna be all over it. In less than a heartbeat.