I am a twenty-four year old adult type person.
I've been thinking about a lot of things recently, and it has occurred to me that some people may not understand my situation and are too shy to ask about it, worried it might be some kind of taboo topic, or something you just don't talk about, like Uncle Ernest in the special hospital in upstate New York. I think some people feel that I must be embarrassed about certain things, but for the record I am completely not, and I have never been happier in my entire life than I am right now.
I am a writer. That's my career choice right there, and I make good on it just about every day of my life. Sometimes I have a hard time saying it to people when they ask, because everybody in LA has got a screenplay and most twelve year olds have written 'novels' (two chapters of some huge epic they have planned spanning half a dozen books at least) and lots of people are fond of telling you 'I always wanted to be a writer.' Stephen King said it best when he said "Everybody who truly wants to be a writer is a writer. There are no special requirements. All it takes is your time and your effort." So I give my time and I give my effort and I can honestly say that I work much harder at my choice occupation than a lot of people do.
The reason I'm shy about advertising the fact that I write as my livelihood is that no one ever respects you at all. I suppose everyone and their sister has met "writers" before, but if you know me you know I'm not one of those people. I don't want anyone to give me a standing ovation, but a lot of people seem to equate writing with something lower on the rung than a gigolo cabana boy.
I measure my life in creation and production. I am not fulfilled unless I am making something, whether it be writing a story or producing a little bit of mediocre art (no, I will never be a mentionable artist, by I enjoy drawing and often it helps me think about what I'm working on). I am entirely a producer and not a consumer, and I only consume in order to augment my production. If I haven't spent my time making something original and new every single day I walk and breathe, then I'm not satisfied.
I am, in fact, in print, but I'm not telling you where. Anyone who has read my stuff and then read the wallpaper drivel on most of the shelves of the chain bookstores knows that I am certainly more than good enough to be in print. I write on a professional level and have been doing so for at least a year. I am an excellent style mimic, I am preternaturally empathetic, and I am very detail savvy. I am largely self-educated, as I have ever been. I am fascinated with linguistics, the early days of the Catholic church, Islamic mysticism, and a whole slew of other topics. I read and distill from primary source documents almost entirely.
I had six years at the university and nearly had two separate major degrees (BA and BFA thank you) when I stopped going because it was making me miserable. I love education, but a lot of what I was forced into at the university was not education, so I made a choice to stop going. It was a hard choice, mainly because of what a lot of people assume about me because I don't have an undergraduate degree. Frankly, I don't really care what they think about me. I'm doing what I think is right with my life. I have stopped wasting my time on pointless activities. I don't sit around all day eating cheetos and watching television. I write and I write and I write and I write and I write.
I don't write throwaway garbage either. On the rare occasion that I do still write fanfiction, I do it as an outlet because I have some particular idea that I want to express, but I work almost entirely on my original fiction. I have a lot to say about fanfiction as metafiction and the importance of fanfiction as literature in the nature of semiotics, but that's not what this post is about. It's enough to say in this post that my primary body of work is my body of original fiction, and I work on that constantly.
Please, never ever imply to me that you think I'm wasting my time on my original work. If you condescend to me over it, or if you feel the need to tell me that the things I'm doing are not worthwhile for whatever reason, I will very adroitly take you off of my Christmas card list. I'm not trying to be superior to anyone who goes out into the big wide world to be a secretary or a doctor or a computer tech or a sales rep or my favorite accountant. I respect you all immensely. All I want is the gentle head nod of recognition that I too am employed.
Bryan tells me that I do the most important and worthwhile work of anyone he knows. He likes to remind me that I am a practitioner of the world's third oldest profession. Of course, he's sort of required to be supportive of me, but he's also very honest. If he thought I was writing Nicholas Sparks, he would tell me.
So. I am not a housewife. To begin with, I am not a wife and I do not live in a house, but more practically, if you know a housewife who writes as much as I do, then she is not a housewife either. (And I totally mean no disrespect to anyone who does homemake. Anyone who has tried it even in a offhand way knows it is hard fucking business and it will eat all your time like nothing else).
Sometimes I have to do without trendy new clothes or all of the new toys that we all want whenever we go out to the stores, but I'm happy to do without because I would much rather wear old clothes and play old toys and be able to write and write and spend all my times writing if I choose to than have all the fine new things in the world. In the end, I think that's what Stephen King was getting at. If you want to write, you can. No one is stopping you. All it takes is your time, but you have to make time for it. In the end, you will spend as much time as you really and truly want writing, and as much time as you really and truly want doing other things.
I think by this point you can guess my priority list.
Peace out,
Gabi
I am a writer. That's my career choice right there, and I make good on it just about every day of my life. Sometimes I have a hard time saying it to people when they ask, because everybody in LA has got a screenplay and most twelve year olds have written 'novels' (two chapters of some huge epic they have planned spanning half a dozen books at least) and lots of people are fond of telling you 'I always wanted to be a writer.' Stephen King said it best when he said "Everybody who truly wants to be a writer is a writer. There are no special requirements. All it takes is your time and your effort." So I give my time and I give my effort and I can honestly say that I work much harder at my choice occupation than a lot of people do.
The reason I'm shy about advertising the fact that I write as my livelihood is that no one ever respects you at all. I suppose everyone and their sister has met "writers" before, but if you know me you know I'm not one of those people. I don't want anyone to give me a standing ovation, but a lot of people seem to equate writing with something lower on the rung than a gigolo cabana boy.
I measure my life in creation and production. I am not fulfilled unless I am making something, whether it be writing a story or producing a little bit of mediocre art (no, I will never be a mentionable artist, by I enjoy drawing and often it helps me think about what I'm working on). I am entirely a producer and not a consumer, and I only consume in order to augment my production. If I haven't spent my time making something original and new every single day I walk and breathe, then I'm not satisfied.
I am, in fact, in print, but I'm not telling you where. Anyone who has read my stuff and then read the wallpaper drivel on most of the shelves of the chain bookstores knows that I am certainly more than good enough to be in print. I write on a professional level and have been doing so for at least a year. I am an excellent style mimic, I am preternaturally empathetic, and I am very detail savvy. I am largely self-educated, as I have ever been. I am fascinated with linguistics, the early days of the Catholic church, Islamic mysticism, and a whole slew of other topics. I read and distill from primary source documents almost entirely.
I had six years at the university and nearly had two separate major degrees (BA and BFA thank you) when I stopped going because it was making me miserable. I love education, but a lot of what I was forced into at the university was not education, so I made a choice to stop going. It was a hard choice, mainly because of what a lot of people assume about me because I don't have an undergraduate degree. Frankly, I don't really care what they think about me. I'm doing what I think is right with my life. I have stopped wasting my time on pointless activities. I don't sit around all day eating cheetos and watching television. I write and I write and I write and I write and I write.
I don't write throwaway garbage either. On the rare occasion that I do still write fanfiction, I do it as an outlet because I have some particular idea that I want to express, but I work almost entirely on my original fiction. I have a lot to say about fanfiction as metafiction and the importance of fanfiction as literature in the nature of semiotics, but that's not what this post is about. It's enough to say in this post that my primary body of work is my body of original fiction, and I work on that constantly.
Please, never ever imply to me that you think I'm wasting my time on my original work. If you condescend to me over it, or if you feel the need to tell me that the things I'm doing are not worthwhile for whatever reason, I will very adroitly take you off of my Christmas card list. I'm not trying to be superior to anyone who goes out into the big wide world to be a secretary or a doctor or a computer tech or a sales rep or my favorite accountant. I respect you all immensely. All I want is the gentle head nod of recognition that I too am employed.
Bryan tells me that I do the most important and worthwhile work of anyone he knows. He likes to remind me that I am a practitioner of the world's third oldest profession. Of course, he's sort of required to be supportive of me, but he's also very honest. If he thought I was writing Nicholas Sparks, he would tell me.
So. I am not a housewife. To begin with, I am not a wife and I do not live in a house, but more practically, if you know a housewife who writes as much as I do, then she is not a housewife either. (And I totally mean no disrespect to anyone who does homemake. Anyone who has tried it even in a offhand way knows it is hard fucking business and it will eat all your time like nothing else).
Sometimes I have to do without trendy new clothes or all of the new toys that we all want whenever we go out to the stores, but I'm happy to do without because I would much rather wear old clothes and play old toys and be able to write and write and spend all my times writing if I choose to than have all the fine new things in the world. In the end, I think that's what Stephen King was getting at. If you want to write, you can. No one is stopping you. All it takes is your time, but you have to make time for it. In the end, you will spend as much time as you really and truly want writing, and as much time as you really and truly want doing other things.
I think by this point you can guess my priority list.
Peace out,
Gabi