The Trials of the Writer

I have officially been working at Walmart for two days, and it has only confirmed that I will go insane unless I manage to find a job I love. It doesn't help that I've discovered my position is "temporary setup", which loosely translates to "heavy box bitch". The red flag really should have come up when I had to watch three separate videos on safe lifting. Needless to say, the alarm was blaring when I was casually asked to put three air conditioner sets back on the shelf all by myself.

Anyway, to the point. The more I work, the more I have to focus on the fact that my job is merely a stepping stone to my true dream-to be a writer. Oh yes, that's the life for me! To be a smarmy, skin-so-untouched-by-natural-light-it's-translucent little glass'd nerd banging at a laptop today as a career. To actually kick back and to listen to the little voices inside my head for pay. And I'd watch the scholars find complex symbolism in my work and rub it in the face of the next generation, thus inspiring them to hate my work and write their own as a retort. And I'd watch as the beloved characters I create are worshiped creepily on the internet, and portrayed as out of character, deviant, overly-angsty lunatics in fanfiction. That is the life I aspire to. This is the world I wish to be a part of!

However! I am not so naive as to know that I have a long way to go before I could ever be in this pantheon, this elite, this heavenly sphere of rich smartasses. It's a massive, brutal road, filled with blood, sweat, and overpaid agents. There are pot holes at every corner, and it takes every little bit of free time you can spare. And you know, being a writer isn't really easy. I'm not kidding. As the title of this blog suggests, there are many massive challenges a writer must face, even outside of getting published and screaming groupies.

WALMART

As mentioned, publishing doesn't happen overnight. A newbie writer is lucky if they get their first book published within two years, and that's without a writer's inherent massive sex appeal. So a writer has to find another way to keep bread on the table, which means a writer needs at least one sucky job on the side. True, getting a sucky job to finance a better career isn't exclusive to the writing field*, but like any creative job, it's a part of the process to the point of being a rite of passage. However, if you're a writer and currently are worried about putting bread on the table, look forward to my next post plugging some excellent recipes for rejection letters.

It's sad, but every good artist, a writer included, needs to eventually look forward to working at a job that is a tad less endearing than one would hope for. On my repertoire, I have worked as a cashier, a heavy box bitch, and a bar wench. And that's just summer jobs. There's something morbidly exciting about wondering what sort of strange and unnatural job I'll get when I'm done with school and out on my own. I'm hoping for either plucky young twenty-something amateur sleuth or sky pirate. Though I'll probably end up working at Starbucks, which is almost kind of straddling the two. Especially with those new mansion with a huge inheritance secret death star kiosks.

I NEED AN EDITOR

I am not an idiot, even if I know five year olds that have a better grasp of spelling and grammar than I. I don't know what it is, but I have no eye for the mechanical aspect of writing. My loyal and beloved readers (both of them) have each found multiple typos and mistakes in my work, despite my hardest efforts to proofread and double check and spell check to my hearts content. I don't know how I've lived here all my life, spoken this language all my life, was reading by age two, writing ever since I was thirteen, and still always manage to forget how to spell "later" versus "latter". I look like I'm doing this on purpose.

If I'm going to be a writer, I definitely need an editor. Ah, that sounds so romantic. Someone who'll correct all your stupid mistakes for you. It doesn't matter if you just spit out a huge, gibbering mess with little thought or consideration, your editor will be by your side to fix up all your stupid mistakes with a bounce in his or her step and a smile on his or her face. Like a butler, or a friendly toaster oven. Mmm, I like the sound of that. But I'd think it would be hard to get someone in on that deal. I mean, do you know who Stephen King's editor is? I don't.

YOU HAVE TO WRITE ALL THE TIME

You really do. Books and articles don't write themselves. I don't know whether it's because I have a slow brain, slow fingers, or someone slapped a flux capacitor on my back again, but it takes a lot of time to write a book, or even just an article here on the blog. Certainly a lot longer than it does to think one up. I've spent the whole day on some of the these blog entries. The last Angel Food and Devil Dogs review took five or six hours to complete. Five hours is a lot of time!That's more than a season of Venture Bros dude! I barely have enough time knit, read yaoi fanfiction, and complain about how bored I am these days.

It's not that it's anything bad or anything. I love to write, so it's not that I regret spending all that time on it. But it can be a bit of a trick managing to balance it into your schedule, especially when things like going to work and actually needing to go to class get in the way. It doesn't help that I'm at a decided disadvantage by being one of the few artists out there who actually needs to sleep. I know some creative art people who can live on three hours of sleep a night, but if I don't get eight hours a pop, the nose goblins that live under my dirty clothes pile starts talking again. So I have to get used to going to bed at 10-11 PM again, which brings back uncomfortable memories of Middle and High School. And summer camp at the Y.

GENERAL INSANITY

Contrary to popular opinion, not all writers are inherently depressed, gay, or crazy. It's more of an occupational hazard. Like any good artist, a writer's job is to both represent and reflect life. And anyone who's lived life for more than five minutes is probably aware of what a massively stressful job it is. Not to mention us American writers have to do so with the English Language, the most gawrdawful cumbersome language there is. It steals words from freaking everyone, it has a million different grammatical rules, and then people go turn punctuation marks into faces. I have a hard enough time describing why The Police are awesome, and you want me to discern inter- and extra-personal cosmology? Why don't you ask me to play "Psychobilly Freakout" with my elbows and blindfolded while your at it?

Just like consorting with the dark one and full-time employment at the Gap, everyone feels the strain of writing a little differently, and everyone deals with it differently. Some people just get swallowed up and do go full-on insane, others turn to alcoholism, isolation, and chicks, or some people like me numb their personality on JRPGs and Britcoms. As for the gay, I have a lot of theories, but the most credible ones have something to do with Shakespeare and/or Microsoft Office 97.

IT'S HARD TO STAY PALE

Bloody summer. I swear, I was just outside the other day needing to warm myself up in the sun, because for some reason, they air condition the employee training room to subarctic degrees below zero. Eventually, since it is summer, I decide I start to feel a little hot, so I go inside. When I take a shower that night? Color. Freaking color. Granted, it's only like, a eensy bit and you can't even see it, but DANG. It's going to take me days to make it go away.

Writers have an image to preserve. I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure it is one. If anything else, every writer needs a visual trademark, and my brunette-to-black-hair against my whitest-kid-on-the-block skin with my monochromatic-and-sometimes-red outfits is mine. Tampering with the image of a writer violates the natural order. And even though I'm whiter than a fifties sitcom, I still have to be on constant vigilance. Doesn't help that I inherited the ability to tan at the drop of a hat from my Mom's side of the family. Needing to go outside-you continue to be the bane of my existence.

FREAKING WRITER'S BLOCK

Some people have an affinity certain good qualities in writing. Some people just seem to be really good at spelling and grammar (and in my opinion, very few people deserve a richer slap for being so...unless they want to be my editor, of course). Some people are really good at thinking interesting plots or narration. Some people have a gift at writing dialog so complex and nuanced that it makes you feel like you really are listening to people talking. Some writers are just good at that intangible, indescribable something that makes something fun to read. The nice thing about all of this is that with a little practice, everyone can get competent in these fields, and it becomes much easier to be able to summon them as time goes on. But nobody, and I mean nobody manages to go steady with inspiration.

Okay, that's not necessarily true. Like everything else, practicing thinking creatively will eventually lead to creative thoughts. The more you learn the rules, the more you learn to twist them and break them down. And yet for some, stupid reason, despite your best intentions, every once in awhile, inspiration will decide she needs to see other people, leaving you an empty mess, staring a a blank screen in Microsoft Word for the last hour or so. And like any other job, when a writer can't write, a writer feel like they've failed the universe. It's an ugly feeling. Thankfully, when inspiration does come back, it comes back with the force of a sledgehammer to the solar plexus. But still, the fact that the feeling will jump you despite best intentions is disheartening. The best and pretty much only method to deal with it is to keep writing things out and hoping good something comes eventually. It's as fun as it sounds.

ENDING STUFF

I've once been told that writing is a lot like flying a plane-the only really dangerous parts are taking off and landing. I've never had a problem getting any sort of written project off the ground, but I guess it's traded off in the fact that ending it is an ordeal. Like this post for instance. I have no idea how I'm going to tie up all the loose ends. I mean, should I go all classic and make some statement like "but in the face of all this, a real writer does not care and blah blah bloop de blah", or should I end with a funny anecdote? Summarize the events in a clever matter? Rick Roll all of you?

Ending any piece of writing is like trying to carry a tray of drinks to the table. Any old jerk can carry and empty tray to the kitchen and put a huge pile of drinks on it. It takes a real hero to be able to carry that all the way back to the living room, find the best place to sit it down, and do so without spilling everything all over the place. But when you do it, you feel like a million bucks. Maybe that's why I have a weak spot for stories that have good endings. They don't need to be happy or sad, but when an author can tie up everything just right, no matter how crazy and ridiculous the events may be, it doesn't feel like it was all that bad when you manage to walk off feeling like you're taking away something. And when you do manage to put that tray down just right without spilling a drop, you can't help but think, "Yeah. Yeah I'm awesome."

I think a lot of things are like that. It takes a lot of effort to do any sort of big project or long-term goal, or short term ones, for that matter, and you'll have good times, bad times, and you'll wonder if you'll ever be able to pull it off. But when you do manage to finish it, whether it just be your chores for the day or building a house, you can't help but wear that smug smile, nod to yourself, and be amazed at how awesome you are. Getting through anything from start to finish is no small task, but when you full it off, the feeling you have can't quite be compared to anything else.

And I still hate working at Walmart.

_{*Professions exempt from the sucky job clause include lawyers, billionare playboys by day who are superheroes by night, criminal masterminds, and milkmen.}