What I thought a writing life was, an IWSG post

 

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the November 5 posting of the IWSG are Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglass, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove!

November 5 question - When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

___________________________________

 I "began" writing several different times in my life. 

The first time, I was a child, so I had no idea how money and life in general really worked. I imagined that I'd have a tower room to write in, a horse to ride in the forest, and I could simply dream away every day making up stories. 

Image source

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the likelihood of my ever having the money to afford that life, as a writer or anything else, was low. 

I began again as a college student, when I was around twenty. This version continued into my early thirties. Although I taught for a living, I aspired to be poet. Not just to write poems, but for writing poems to be my vocation. 

image source

I understood it wouldn't make me famous and that I'd need to do something else to make a living by then, but I wanted to write poetry that changed and moved people, poems that got quoted and that I was invited to read at big public events. 

It's hard to pin down why--becoming a mother? different kinds of inspiration? the lure of other artforms?--but I moved away from poetry in my mid thirties, at least with the kind of intensity I brought to it when I was younger. I still write poetry, but it's gotten to be a more private art form for me these days, something I do for myself and not something I write to share. 

The third time I began was in my later thirties. I joined a novel-writing critique group to light a fire under my creativity and help pull myself out of a pretty deep post-partum depression spiral. I had never really considered writing a novel before, and most of those early efforts were pretty terrible, but I kept going. I think part of me thought I could still be Jo March all these years later. 

image source

When I finished my first novel (unpublished, and probably never will be--it was the book I wrote to learn how to write a book), I started to imagine what that kind of writing life would be like. I imagined that having a book accepted for publication would be life-changing and allow me to stop my other money-making pursuits. After all, movies and TV certainly present it that way. 

Now I am really am a novelist, with five of them published, and three more in process for next year. It's up and down so far as what it earns me. I'll have a stellar month with lots of sales and new acceptances, followed by a month or two or three with no flow. 

Though the income and reception may not be steady, I am. I write every day, and I'm always working on something new as soon I've finished a project. At this stage, the writing life I imagine and am building toward is the one that comes with being retired and not being tied to the time and mental space the day job takes up now. I've got a writing life that can easily fill full-time hours…but not the income to allow me to give it full time hours. 

All the same, I never seriously consider giving it up, even when the going gets rough. I can't imagine NOT having a book I'm working on. That would be like not reading, not eating, not breathing, it's so ingrained into my life. My tower room may never become a reality, but I can write one for my characters and it feels almost the same. 

_________________________________________________

PS--unrelated to today's prompt. I've built a new author website through BookBub. You can check it out at http://dangerouswhenbored.com  But it's not going to work for blogging, unless they make some updates, because their blog pages don't include comment functionality. Blogger, where I've been since 2009, is no longer well supported. I'd love suggestions about what to use! Feel free to comment here to to contact me another way (email: samantha at samanthabryant dot com, samanthabwriter on most social media) to give me your suggestions or feedback on my new website!