Everybody’s doing it…
Everyone is a fucking writer. Have you noticed that? Lately everyone is either a writer or they ‘have always wanted to turn their hand to writing’. I don’t know what it is these people are imagining… Some sort of bohemian lifestyle in a lonely attic room; bottles of red wine, ink-daubed pages and a string of lovers perhaps.
They certainly aren’t thinking of sleepless nights sitting in front of a computer, or having to go to work the next day on 2 hours sleep. They can’t be thinking how it feels to receive rejection after rejection after rejection. They haven’t a clue what it means to sit for hours staring at a blank screen, trying to speak with their characters and having nothing to say. They are certainly not thinking about the world these individuals will live in or what is inspiring them to do what needs to be done because they are too busy listening to the sound of their own voice telling me they want to be a writer. They don’t have notebooks filled with scribbled thoughts and ideas for use later. They don’t understand that every time they get 5 minutes to themselves they should be thinking about the who, the what, the when or the why. For them writing is as simple as sitting down with a pen and ‘being creative.’
And if you ask these people how much work they’ve done so far you receive blank looks.
‘Well I’m researching at the moment you see.’
‘Oh I have this great idea, it’s just getting the time to sit down and write it.’
That is all bollox. If you are going to write then you either do it or you shut the fuck up. You don’t bore me with tales of how you are going to get a publishing contract (never having written a word.) You don’t tell me how your story is really good, but it’s all in your head at the moment. And you certainly don’t tell me that it’s ‘so original… no-one has ever thought of this for a story’ because Honey, I hate to tell ya, but it has all been done before. Writing is hard and lonely and painful. It’s ripping experiences out of your life, and vomiting up things you’d hoped never to remember. Its heartache and loss and everything you’ve ever suffered. It’s slashing open your guts and laying them out where anyone can see. It’s death and it’s life and it’s going to hurt. Anyone who tells you anything less is lying.
