One Simply Does Not Write A Book
“Ah, you’re writing a book. What an easy life
you have.”
How many times have you heard that or other
comments where the person speaking to you feels that being an author or a
writer is the easiest job in the world? Do these types of comments put you on
the defensive? Should you fire back with the hours and hours you spend on
research? Do the words “you don’t have a clue” spring to mind? Are you always
on the defensive, explaining how you don’t spend all day in five star
restaurants or on talk shows?
You’re not alone. I can’t count how many
times I’ve cringed when I see “that” look on someone’s face. I just know what’s
coming next. So, one must ask: “How do I make non-authors understand how much
work is involved?”
The first thing you need to say is that one
simply does not write a book. Imagine their expression of shock and disbelief
when you drop that on them. Most people will tell you that it must not be such
a hard job to write a book. After all, thousands of people publish a book daily.
Why, you probably knock out a book between the time you wake up and the time
you shove the kids out the door to get them to school.
That can’t be further from the truth. Writing
a book isn’t just sitting in front of a monitor and pounding out the next Great
American novel. Even fiction requires research, both before you start and as
you’re progressing through your manuscript. Writing a book requires hours and
days of intense concentration. Robert Henilein alluded to the actual process of
writing a book in his novel, “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.”
“There is no way that writers can be tamed or
civilized. Or even cured. In a household of more than one person, of which one
is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with
an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where
food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient
at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear
you at all… and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites.”
Or, as my husband has discovered on several
occasions, one does not approach the working writer quietly, out of their line
of sight while they are busily pounding away on the keyboard. Such an
interruption has always results in a loud shriek and then an angry tirade about
disrupting the flow of a major plot point.
Another perception is that authors price
their books too high, making it impossible to buy a book, thereby forcing fans
to pirate sites in order to pick up the much sought after novel.
In order to put this into perspective, I
would challenge all those claiming books are too expensive to think of them as
entertainment. How much are you willing to pay for a nice evening out? Will you
elect to purchase fast food because the restaurant you’ve been wanting to try
out is too expensive? Will you wait for a movie to become available on Netflix
instead of seeing it in the theater? Would you tell your children they must
endure a flip phone with none of the features they so desire in a smart phone?
All of those things are expensive, and yet you fail to apply the purchase of a
book to the same reasoning you use to stay top of the line with other luxuries.
Reading a book has always been one of the
most sought after relaxation techniques, until society connected via the
internet. At a time when publishing is changing every moment, when it’s now
possible for an individual to publish their book without an agent or publisher
behind them, society has, for some strange reason, decided that reading is no
longer an acceptable pastime.
The view of the ordinary person on how a
writer exists, however, remains in the era of the 1920s. They see the “glamor”
given to greats such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mark Twain. Most people envision
writers as people living in their lonely garret, bent over a keyboard, and who
are anti-social, until they must appear on talk shows to talk about their
latest novel.
Look around you. Observe the woman reading
every label in the grocery store. She could be a writer, reading those labels
while she plots out the climax of her latest work. The man mumbling to himself
isn’t having a mental breakdown necessarily. He’s figuring how to get male hero
hooked up with female who won’t give him the time of day. Authors today often
give up time with family. They work late into the night or through the day,
deeply immersed in their latest project. A writer may scurry away to social
media, posting the strangest updates, in order to see if their latest ideas
will attract public attention.
One last bit of advice to remember: Care for
the writer or author you know. Treat them with cautions optimism when they
bewail the wall called writer’s block. Offer them a smile and chocolate (or
their favorite snack) when they stumble out at three in the morning, only to
realize they have to make the kids lunches and chase away dust bunnies before
they can get back to their novel still in the early stages after having spent a
long weekend working on it.
Remember, we as authors or writers have
personal lives too. We walk the dog, clean the cat box, make meals, mow the
lawn, and mostly, we observe those around us with the idea of working the
people we find interesting into our next work. We are as human as you are, and
to explain what we do as our chosen profession, one must understand:
One simply does not write a book.
Comments
Maya Angelou
I live by this rule as much as possible. Thanks for the article, KC.