I Would Resign

Who wouldn't want to be a writer?

It's a glamorous lifestyle, right? And easy.

After all, people pay ridiculous sums of money for writers to daydream and commit to paper whatever comes to their head. Then, in the evenings and on weekends, writers jet set around the world, sipping champagne and taking fabulous cross-country vacations in between book signings and talk show appearances.

If only that were the truth.

The reality is countless hours spent staring at a computer, banging one's head against brick walls, agonizing over word choices, character decisions, trying to decide when a work of fiction has crossed boundaries that it should never cross, writing, reading, editing, rewriting, rereading, and editing just a little more while losing sleep because the muse has turned off your internal clock and forgetting to eat. It's a destructive, repetitive lifestyle. And all of this before the work is ever submitted, before it risks rejection, before it ever earns one cent towards purchasing a package of macaroni and cheese for the writer to wolf down between writing bouts.

Some of us would resign, throw up our hands and quit, but we're not allowed. Our friends, our fellow writers, the voices in our heads, the stories we are destined to tell won't let us. So, we plod on, losing track of days and weeks and the seasons and hoping that one day, someone, somewhere will read what we've written and that it will touch an emotional core of their being. And maybe, just maybe, they'll pay us for the privilege, at least enough for another box of mac & cheese.