What Is It that We Do, Again?

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally getting to the point where I’m not embarrassed to call myself “a writer” in the right circumstances. Trust me, it’s taken years. It’s one of those unsung hard parts about being a writer, taking yourself seriously. Another is finding time to write. It’s not the hardest part, but it’s tough. Talk to any writer and he/she will tell you it’s never easy. There are a lot of reasons for this…

For example, I’ve just crossed the 50,000-word mark on my work-in-progress (WIP), a novel I’ve been working on a over 18 months. Now, even for me, this is slow. (And it’s gruesome death when you’re self-publishing. But that’s another topic.) In my own defense, however, I had some personal issues last year that sucked my will (and time) to write for many months. And after that, I faced the Demon of Writer’s Block. (Some writers don’t believe in writer’s block. They probably don’t believe in Santa Claus, either.)

I’ve gotten past the DWB recently, and started working with a new energy. (Then I got side-tracked by another project, but at least it was a writing project. And it might actually bring in money in the foreseeable future, as opposed to a book which isn’t even finished and based on its history, may not be during the current Administration.) But while renewed energy is great, maybe crucial, there’s still that problem of finding time to write.

Now, the conventional wisdom is to set up a standard time and sit down to write every day at that time. Terrific idea. In theory. In practice, Life gets in the way. I don’t have kids, and I have trouble simply attending to household duties and spending time with my wife. How writers with children manage to finish anything at all has always been a mystery to me, and I hold them in high esteem.

Yes, conventional wisdom says, but you have to treat writing like a job: Do it every day even when you don’t want to. And there, I believe, is the problem.

You see, a lot of people don’t like their jobs. They spend much of their working time devising schemes on how not to work, or how to minimize work. If you tell them writing is another job, it’s liable to suffer from the same maladies. I know that I like to set a minimum daily word count, but I don’t beat myself up if I don’t meet it, because if I work just to get to that limit, then I stop when I get there. Because it’s work, and I’d rather be reading or surfing the net.

There’s also the fact that if this is work, you want to get paid a lot more for it. So in order not to quit as soon as possible, and not to worry about pay rates, some writers tell themselves it’s only a hobby. Hobbies are extra activities you take on in your spare time. Hobbies are fun. Wouldn’t you like writing to be fun? Well, yeah, but hobbies are also things you do when you have time. And if you wait to write until you have time, then you spend 18 months writing 50,000 words.

So what is writing, work or hobby? Seems to me it should be something in between. Something you spend a regular, meaningful amount of time on, but not drudgery, not something you scheme to escape as soon as possible, even if it’s only for a long lunch. Writing isn’t one thing or the other; it’s kind of the “brunch” of careers.

I guess you could call writing a “wobby,” but I don’t think it’s going to catch on. We need someone who’s good with words to work on that.

#SFWApro

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Five Reasons Why Screenwriters have It Easier than Novelists

1. Novelists have to do all the work themselves. When you write a book, you have to do all the work. You don’t have a director to lay out your scenes, or actors to fill in your characters. You can’t just say “Scene 1 – exterior – day,” and have someone else dress the set. (Of course, we don’t have to pay those people either, or put up with their whiny “But my character wouldn’t do that” tantrums, but such considerations do not inform my thesis.)

2. Novelists can’t just blow something up. In a movie, when the plot lags, you blow something up. Novelists can’t do that. We don’t have the permits.

3. Screenwriters can always blame someone else. Once you draft a screenplay, you give it to the studio, who usually gives it back–to another screenwriter. You often end up sharing credits with 30 other people you’ve never met. Then there are the directors, studio suits, and naturally, those whiny actors who wouldn’t know what to say if you didn’t write it down for them. (They probably have assistants to read it to them, for that matter.) So how could anyone blame you if the final product tanks? Your vision was pure. A novelist, though, he’s got an editor, maybe some marketing guys, and way back in the line, his critique group. Who’s he going to blame if the book doesn’t sell? “The cover was awful.” Yeah, that always works. Who judges a book by its cover? And if the book is a hit, who gets the credit? (Well, yeah, okay…but how often does that happen?)

4. Screenwriters get respect. In LA, you go into a coffeehouse, or a Starbucks (Starbucks isn’t a coffee house, it’s a coffee bar, don’t get me started), and half the patrons are on a laptop. Of those, half are students, and the other half are writers. Ask one of these laptop users: “What are you working on?” First, you’ll have to ask three times, because they’re all wearing headphones. But when you get through to them, the answer is either, “I’m writing a screenplay,” or “I’m writing a book.” The response to the former is, “Cool. What’s it about?” The response to the latter is, “People still read books?”

5. Screenwriters don’t have to find space to write. See no. 4. After enough people interrupt him, the novelist gets discouraged and goes home to drink his coffee, because they won’t let you put booze in it at the Starbucks.

All right. Enough of this. I’m halfway through my venti latte and I haven’t done any work yet.

Scene 1 – exterior – day …

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