{"id":11672,"date":"2012-02-12T15:59:28","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T02:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11672"},"modified":"2012-02-12T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T02:59:28","slug":"my-terribly-important-thoughts-on-the-writing-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/02\/12\/my-terribly-important-thoughts-on-the-writing-life\/","title":{"rendered":"My ‘Terribly Important Thoughts’ on the Writing Life …"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was updating my website yesterday, I was thinking about writing a short piece on “The Writer’s Life is Like …”<\/em> And then I thought: “Nuh—because it’s so obvious!” (Plus done before by just about every other writer—big press, small press & indie–under the sun!)<\/p>\n

I mean, of course<\/em> the writer’s life is like any other small business! You do the book writing (and or doughnut selling, whiteware repairs et al) by day and everything else “after hours.”\u00a0 (That’s night times and<\/em> weekend, folks.) And run to stand still, or at least inch forward in small increments—because writing is<\/em> a small business. So, duh!<\/p>\n

While on the other hand,\u00a0 not being a business at all. That’s because it’s also a vocation, ie most folk who write feel called or compelled to do so, regardless of whether it makes good business sense. Which, again of course, it usually doesn’t! Opportunity cost: high. Likely chance of ever breaking even let alone returning a\u00a0 profit: low.<\/p>\n

This of course means that you can look on the writing life as a ‘Lifestyle Choice.’ Or alternatively, as a ‘Life Sentence’—it all depends on one’s point of view. Also, possibly, on whether one can find someone else willing to underwrite one’s Lifestyle Choice. This could be called Patronage (grants, residencies etc fall into this category)—but more often it’s “Wife”, “Husband”, or “Still Doting Parent.”<\/p>\n

Conclusion: the writing life (aka ‘being a writer’) is A Conundrum.<\/p>\n

Or in the immortal words from the movie Shakespeare in Love<\/em>: “It’s A Mystery.”<\/p>\n

One, I suspect, of the world’s few remaining Great Unsolved Mysteries—and perhaps that’s ‘the answer’ to the Conundrum, because there is nothing quite so beguiling, or addictive, as a good mystery …<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Well, you have probably cottoned on by now to the fact that I am not in an entirely serious mood, and might even be accused of being tongue in cheek … Although like most jests, my ‘terribly important thoughts’ contain at least a grain of truth, possibly even more than that. But you see, here’s the thing: to find out for sure, you have to be willing to enter the maze and walk it’s paths for yourself—and to return to the mystery part of the conundrum, I’ve heard it whispered that everyone, on entering, is given a different ‘key.’\u00a0 Which means that there is no universal truth about the writing life that anyone can share with anyone else—except possibly (I would go so far as to say ‘probably’) the one that Lilith Saintcrow<\/a> tweeted the other day:<\/p>\n

“Writing is not the problem. Writing is the goddamn solution. Get solving.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Oh yea!” I say. “And again: yea!”<\/p>\n

And now, with post o’ the day done, could be time to go do some solving! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was updating my website yesterday, I was thinking about writing a short piece on “The Writer’s Life is Like …” And then I thought: “Nuh—because it’s so obvious!” (Plus done before by just about every other writer—big press, small press & indie–under the sun!) I mean, of course the writer’s life is like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11672"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11680,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672\/revisions\/11680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}