The (Not So) Glamorous Life of an Author



 Oh dear, the glamour of it!

And yes, I am talking about the life of (most) authors.

The word "glamour" picks up the image of a perfectly coiffed and polished, stylishly dressed and impeccably madeup celebrity, dripping with diamonds... or maybe wandering rustically about his or her reclaimed property where horses graze and rain comes on command... Okay, that's silly, but to most people "glamour" means wealth, comfort, fame and adulation. Picture the Hollywood stars of the Golden Age, when mink coats were the wrap of choice instead of something to hide away in the depths of the wardrobe because it was Great-Aunt Marina's and you can't quite bring yourself to burn it.

Glamour has another meaning though, and that's the one that illuminates the lives of most authors. Glamour is illusion. It is hope. It is faith. It is that golden certainty that is just out of reach for everyone but fanatics, the fantastically wealthy, and --maybe--some politicians. Glamour offers more than entitlement. It offers the fair return for hard work and inspiration.

Glamour suggests that once "the call" has come, and you've signed that book contract, then you are there, baby!

Glamour is what keeps us striving. It is also what brings the utter unfairness of life to the fore.

We are told that we can achieve whatever we dream of.

Poppycock.

So, what's the best thing about writing? It's the writing itself! It's creating characters and worlds and plots and whole realities where life works. It's the fairytale where the youngest son wins the princess, and the virtuous girl gets the unicorn (and makes a killing from selling unicorn manure). Writing is the full, sublime joy of creation. There are few things better.

Getting books out there is fine too.

So what's the worst thing about writing? It's the striving of "get to do" against "have to do". It's battling real life for the time we need. It's bumping our heads on the invisible screen with the oh-so-fine mesh that winnows the unworthy... which we fear will be ourselves. It's the endless waiting for responses. It's the bonedeep weariness of never quite getting where we need to be. It's the two line form rejection of a manuscript an editor ASKED for. It's the grinding down of originality to make it fit the format. It's the silence. It's the relentless feeling of loss when yet another high-praised writer is caught doing something he (usually he) should never have done and publically shamed and possibly gaoled, while others who behave themselves get cast into the rejection or remainder pile or bring out a book to two luke-warm reviews.

So, why do we do it? Why do I do it? 

I belong to an online writing club... have been a member for over twenty years. New members come onboard all the time, and a depressing proportion of them write to express themselves, to illuminate their trauma or to exorcise their demons. They come right out and say so!

I don't do that. I never have. I write to entertain, to tell a good story, to bring some positive warmth and honest hope to the world. I don't suggest to my readers that a prince is the answer to their girlish dreams. I don't tell them that they have only to try to be successful. I try to tell the stories that say, hey, if you look at life squarely and then squint a little bit, you might see a shadowy spiral staircase that will take you close to the stars to bring some joy to your life... and to others. The climb will be hard, but you'll find it worth the effort.

That's not glamour, you see. That's not dreams. That's not reward for your effort. That's being in the driver's seat and steering life instead of letting it drive you.


Please join my friends and colleagues to read their take on this issue!

Diane Bator  https://escapewithawriter.wordpress.com/

Connie Vines  http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Sally Odgers  https://behindsallysbooksmark2.blogspot.com (me)

Dr. Bob  https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3H8https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3H8

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Characters to Go

Image
 This month's blog hop topic is  Creating Compelling Characters who drive the plot and keep readers reading . My heading is somewhat of a cheat, in that it's the title of one of my how-to writing manuals which I produced years ago in concert with my assessment and editing service. Eventually, I combined a dozen or so of the manuals into one giant edifice (truly, you could use the thing as a stepladder) with a long title. Characters to Go became a part of that. Mind, I'm not simply reproducing chunks of that book for this post. That really would be cheating! I've been creating characters for more than fifty years. My earliest ones were generally girls of about my age (then) or animals. The human characters tended to be fascinated by animals, fantasy, stories and country adventure, just as I was. I suppose most of them were offbeat, just as I was, and am. I never had any desire to write about immoral characters, or MCs who were cruel or nasty or unlawful or even disobedie...
Read more

Landscapes of My Mind - Creating Fictional Settings

Image
The round robin this month is a wonderful subject... creating fictional settings. Creating fictional settings is one of my favourite things to do. I've always loved reading about landscapes of the mind- p laces that don't exist- so long as the author makes them  seem  as if they do. The whole concept has a long and grand history. Plato did it so convincingly that even two thousand years later some people choose to believe Atlantis once sank beneath the waves rather than rose from a Greek man’s imagination. I've never invented any place as ambitious as Atlantis, but I've been creating my own settings for almost as long as I remember. Back in the 1970s, I created a farming district I named Springford as a main setting for my first published book, a collection of linked stories called  Her Kingdom for a Pony.  I didn't use the real farming district in which I lived, because I wanted freedom to use features that didn't exist. Having developed a taste for it, I...
Read more

Cliched Situations

   Today's blog-hop topic is  Finding compelling conflict and avoiding clichés .  As usual, this is an interesting challenge, both in reality and in describing... if you see what I mean. It offers lots of possible approaches. I've chosen to focus on clichéd situations and their role in compelling conflict rather than on verbal clichés...  So, to clichéd situations.  Many genres and sub-genres rely on genre-specific tropes, or givens. I don't regard these as clichés in the parameters of this piece, and indeed they can be used in varied ways to avoid that clichéd feeling. What I find of more interest is situations that are commonly used to create conflict or action, but which contravene the  would-he-really  test. Let's look at a few of these. 1. Character One (let's call her Jane) overhears a conversation, whether in reality or via phone, or even by reading part of a letter/email. Jane immediately decides Character Two, a friend, mentor, ...
Read more