What’s it like being a writer?
Tiny Eliza dreaming about her future as a successful author. So cute and tiny Eliza.
People ask me this often, usually followed by,
“I didn’t even know that was a real job.”
Well, it’s not a “real job” wherein I punch the clock every day and stand around a water cooler sipping lukewarm discount coffee from a mug that says WORLD’S BEST CAT MOM debating last weekend’s Super Bowl halftime show with wheat-grass-sipping millennials, after which I plant my ginormous butt in an ergonomically unfriendly cubicle where I’m screamed at over the phone by people who are still mad about that halftime show all the while counting every single granule of sand in my desktop, Henry Cavill-shaped hourglass until it’s time to commute home with other bipedal creatures who don’t ascribe to basic hygiene practices or personal-boundary theory and upon arriving at my overpriced, undersized suburban abode that may have an ant issue, I choke down leftover cold pasta and clean the cat barf off my duvet so I can go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow.
It’s something like that, but actually not the same at all. Except for maybe the dodgy hygiene practices.
Truthfully, it’s as disorganized as this:
Fear: That page is really blank.
Frustration: That page is still freaking blank.
Eureka: I added some words to the page!
Inspiration: THE INTERNET IS SO FULL OF FACTS.
Social media: You people are all doing better than I am.
Excitement: This idea doesn't suck!
Disillusionment: This idea sucks rocks.
Email: Good news about X book!
Email: Terrible news about X book!
Fun: Good-news phone calls 3-4 times a year.
Sad: Not-such-good-news phone calls 3-4 times a year.
Wait: For edits.
Wait: For the book on submission to publishers.
Wait some more: Your agent is on vacation and thus unavailable for a week, aka one million years.
Hope: Fades, but never disappears.
Rejection: Tears and [insert vice of choice] and then rage and then acceptance and more hope.
Acceptance: Tears and [insert vice of choice] and then fear. So much fear.
Edit again: Writing is rewriting.
Self-doubt: You suck. Googles "plumbing schools nearby."
Nauseating: Sales numbers. Deletes bank app from phone.
More crippling self-doubt: Googles "trade schools for people over 40."
Comfort: Bookstores and Staples/Office Depot and Schitt’s Creek
Terror: People will hate this book. Oh god why am I doing this I am a fraud and a hack and a monster.
Appreciation: Thank you to the people who didn't hate this book.
Elation: WAIT I HAVE A NEW IDEA!!!
Perseverance: Dust off my pants. Start anew.
LATHER. RINSE. REPEAT.
[ADDENDUM: Procrastinate: Write dumb lists.]
Actual picture of Eliza Gordon at work this morning. OK, that is a lie. Eliza Gordon is way prettier. OK, that, too, is a lie. But Eliza Gordon would very much like to eat the sweets on that plate. Maybe not the one with the googly eyes. That’s probably why Fake Eliza Gordon is crying. The doughnut is watching her and she’s freaked out.