NaNoWriMo Pep Talk: And What Do YOU Do?
When I was twenty-four, I moved to Chicago, ready to take on the world. I was armed with a degree in English from the University of Akron and a few semesters’ work at a student job, copy editing our now-defunct newspaper, the Buchtelite. I assumed that I would immediately get a job as a copy editor at the Chicago Tribune or Sun Times, and begin making money hand over fist while living a glamorous, big-city life. Brunch with the girls! Hard-hitting reporting! I would be like Carrie Bradshaw crossed with Mary Tyler Moore crossed with Ida B. Wells.
I was incorrect. The Chicago Tribune does not hire fresh-off-the-turnip-truck liberal arts graduates from state schools. They, like most publications, desire experience, connections, awards, and portfolios. Also, I was barely able to use Word, completely incompetent with Excel, and a total stranger to things like “getting up early” and “arriving at work on time.”
I became a clerk in a paint store in Boystown. I helped people pick out wallpaper; I schlepped paint; I tried in vain to sell custom throw pillows. I blew out my right elbow, wrist, shoulder, and knee hauling five-gallon buckets. I was miserable and a terrible employee. It’s one thing to be a failed writer; it’s another to be a failed paint clerk. My self-esteem was not high.
So I applied for other jobs. Writing jobs. And I got one: a ghostwriting client. He was a wealthy and moderately famous businessman who wanted to write a wish-fulfillment fantasy novel about a wealthy and moderately famous businessman who solves crimes and has love affairs with beautiful women all over the world. James Bond, MBA.
He had me sign a twelve-page confidentiality agreement. He did not want anyone to know he was working on this silly, self-indulgent, non-money-making project. He especially did not want his coworkers and employees to know that he was sneaking off for clandestine meetings with a beautiful younger woman who he paid to pitilessly critique his plot, characters and diction. He was a Serious Adult and he didn’t want anyone to know about his secret dream. He asked me to buy black notebooks, not flowered ones, because the flowered ones might tip people off. They were beneath his dignity.
Obviously, I told everyone. Not details, not my client’s name or what the book was about. But when people said, “And what do YOU do?” I stopped cringeing and saying, “I am the worst retail paint clerk in the Midwest and our store’s reigning Freecell Online champion.” I could say, “I am a writer.” People always blinked. They doubted me.
“Right, but how do you pay the bills?”
“I write words. On paper. For money.”
“But how do you get by?”
“I turn pages in and my client writes me a check. I hand it over to Blue Cross and Starbucks and they give me ibuprofen and coffee.”
“Right, but what’s your day job?”
“I am a writer. I write.”
I was not hugely financially successful. I had writer’s block and it almost broke up my relationship. But I was a writer. A real one. For serious. Whether people believed me or not. I was a writer, not of advertising collateral or employee handbooks or technical manuals, but of fiction. I spent my days writing. It was incredible.
And if I was a writer, so was my client. He spent his days earning money hand over fist, paying his ex-wife and his housekeeper and his nanny, telling people what to do so they could all get fabulously rich, but in his off hours, he thought about what his alter ego, the crime-solving stockbroker, would do. What femme fatale would that guy meet next? Should he carry a gun? Could he buy himself a G6? When his phone rang, who would be on the other end of the line? That man was a writer.
That’s what matters: not how much money you make writing or whether you ever show other people your work. If you spend your time writing, you are a writer. Tell yourself the story. Write it down. You are a writer. I believe you.
I was incorrect. The Chicago Tribune does not hire fresh-off-the-turnip-truck liberal arts graduates from state schools. They, like most publications, desire experience, connections, awards, and portfolios. Also, I was barely able to use Word, completely incompetent with Excel, and a total stranger to things like “getting up early” and “arriving at work on time.”
I became a clerk in a paint store in Boystown. I helped people pick out wallpaper; I schlepped paint; I tried in vain to sell custom throw pillows. I blew out my right elbow, wrist, shoulder, and knee hauling five-gallon buckets. I was miserable and a terrible employee. It’s one thing to be a failed writer; it’s another to be a failed paint clerk. My self-esteem was not high.
So I applied for other jobs. Writing jobs. And I got one: a ghostwriting client. He was a wealthy and moderately famous businessman who wanted to write a wish-fulfillment fantasy novel about a wealthy and moderately famous businessman who solves crimes and has love affairs with beautiful women all over the world. James Bond, MBA.
He had me sign a twelve-page confidentiality agreement. He did not want anyone to know he was working on this silly, self-indulgent, non-money-making project. He especially did not want his coworkers and employees to know that he was sneaking off for clandestine meetings with a beautiful younger woman who he paid to pitilessly critique his plot, characters and diction. He was a Serious Adult and he didn’t want anyone to know about his secret dream. He asked me to buy black notebooks, not flowered ones, because the flowered ones might tip people off. They were beneath his dignity.
Obviously, I told everyone. Not details, not my client’s name or what the book was about. But when people said, “And what do YOU do?” I stopped cringeing and saying, “I am the worst retail paint clerk in the Midwest and our store’s reigning Freecell Online champion.” I could say, “I am a writer.” People always blinked. They doubted me.
“Right, but how do you pay the bills?”
“I write words. On paper. For money.”
“But how do you get by?”
“I turn pages in and my client writes me a check. I hand it over to Blue Cross and Starbucks and they give me ibuprofen and coffee.”
“Right, but what’s your day job?”
“I am a writer. I write.”
I was not hugely financially successful. I had writer’s block and it almost broke up my relationship. But I was a writer. A real one. For serious. Whether people believed me or not. I was a writer, not of advertising collateral or employee handbooks or technical manuals, but of fiction. I spent my days writing. It was incredible.
And if I was a writer, so was my client. He spent his days earning money hand over fist, paying his ex-wife and his housekeeper and his nanny, telling people what to do so they could all get fabulously rich, but in his off hours, he thought about what his alter ego, the crime-solving stockbroker, would do. What femme fatale would that guy meet next? Should he carry a gun? Could he buy himself a G6? When his phone rang, who would be on the other end of the line? That man was a writer.
That’s what matters: not how much money you make writing or whether you ever show other people your work. If you spend your time writing, you are a writer. Tell yourself the story. Write it down. You are a writer. I believe you.