THE WRITERLY LIFE: PERCEPTION vs. REALITY

Many people I’ve met are envious of the writerly life. But their perceptions of what it’s like to be a writer don’t quite match up to reality. Here are my observations.

     What society thinks I do: Spend all day rolling around in my royalty money.

     What my friends think I do: Go to lunch with them (well, yes, I do that a lot) and then go home and roll around in royalty money.

     What my family thinks I do: Binge on Chunky Monkey ice cream while watching TV, reaching out to tap out a few lofty and erudite sentences when the muse hits. (In my defense I do need to “study” the “occasional” movie for plotting and dialogue training. But it’s all under the banner of “continuing education.") And then roll around in royalty money.

THE WRITERLY LIFE--Pen Musings

Ballpoint pens. One of those things you probably use every day but don’t give much thought to. As a writer, I am (seemingly by definition) a ballpoint pen collector. At any given moment in time, I probably have more than one hundred in my inventory. (It’s not “hoarding” if you actually use them, correct? Just checking.)

Pens are everywhere! Tucked in spines of notebooks and journals; stuffed into coffee cups throughout the house; MIA somewhere in my car (I usually harvest at least twenty from underneath the driver’s seat every time I go fishing for a dropped French fry); and often i have at least one jammed into a sweatshirt pocket—which I will hopefully remember to remove before sending the shirt through the laundry.