Let My People Be Weird

Yesterday my husband and I went out with two of our oldest writing friends – Rebecca and Alan Lickiss. Oldest as in “we met them when we didn’t dare tell anyone we were writers in public and they were about at the same stage.” Writers need to socialize with other writers because they need to convince themselves they’re not insane.

Writers limit the instances of actual socialization to no more than once every few months because they’d rather spend their free time holed up, creating people in their head and writing. In other words, because writers are insane.

You see the problem there, right? Yeah, I do too. It might be completely unsolvable. Which means writers will continue to cluster together, but not too often. It also means to the outside world we’ll continue being mysteries wrapped in an enigma with a dash of strange, and most of what we do will continue seeming like weird rituals of crazy people.

This is probably not encouraged by my little rants. The post two days ago got linked in a non writing blog, and an – obviously – non-writer thought I was just being whiney. As a mark of how divided writers and non-writers are, I note that no writer thought that, though one writer (?) over at the Passive Voice thought I was being racist (Is white bread an arcane expression? I just checked to make sure I didn’t type white bred. Heaven knows what my fingers can do. But I don’t seem to have. And for the record I think the problem with being a minority – according to our government I’m Latina. Eh. I think my sons are perceived that way more often than I, but I know I am too. I get asked about my Spanish heritage ALL the time. Such ignorance. My ancestors were from the GOOD side of the border. Friends like Jason Cordova were not so lucky poor things. (Runs) – is that the only time having an “interesting”characteristic, like a different ethnicity does anything for you in writing career is if that’s ALL you want to write about and you want to play the victim. [And even this is usually only true in mainstream, not among us genre wretches.] Those who know me know this p*sses me off at the writing establishment. I don’t believe in restricting people’s creativity. And I am no one’s victim. You can victimize me. Doesn’t mean I’ll stay that way.)

I suspect it’s also not helped by my tendency to wander around the neighborhood in a fog. I’ve more or less cured myself of the sudden exclamations of “So, that’s what I do with the body!” but even so, my next door neighbor warn– er, tells everyone who moves in that I’m I writer, I suppose in an attempt to prevent their calling the police or thinking I’m doing heavy drugs.

So in the interest of my community, or, as I call them when talking to non-writers “my people” (No, I don’t say “Let my people go” to the publishing establishment. They do that with WAY too much relish. But you must admit in another year or two they’ll be pursuing us in chariots, as we walk dry-shod through indie publishing. And we all know how that ended) I decided to explain a few things that might puzzle you.

First and foremost, not all writers are rich. Yes, I know, I know. J.K. Rowling! Stephen King! Pratchett bought a castle! And, and, and… Yes, darlings, yes. But those you hear about splashing money are maybe 1% of the writing community. And that’s writers at ALL stages of development. The larval stage writer – as it were – while we’re trying to break in – a process that might be shortened by Indie, but I suspect not by much – if lucky enough to not work outside the house, will usually live very frugally. I stayed home after our first son was born, because after six years of infertility I was NOT handing him to anyone to spend most of the day away from me. To convince me that this was all right, my husband said “you can try to publish, at last.” I did. Robert was seven when my first novel came out. To contrive in the mean time on one salary, I bought our furniture used and refinished most of it. I did an awful lot of the sewing, particularly for the household (if you ever come over don’t ask why every curtain is a different length. I get touchy.) I cooked everything from scratch and as cheaply a possible. When I started selling, I made about 5k a year. I’m now making barely more than I did when I quit to stay home twenty years ago. Glamorous, our life isn’t. (But, hey, at least we scare the neighbors!)

Is this a complaint? No. You lays your money and you makes your bet. To put it bluntly I wanted to write FAR MORE than I wanted to be a multilingual translator (or a multilingual secretary, which is what I was at the time), which paid okay as a beginner and would make a lot more money now, twenty years later. Also, we always expected my writing to be our retirement plan more than any immediate money. (And how is THAT working for you Ms. Hoyt, as the industry sinks like the Titanic? – Well, so far so good. I’m atop the grand piano and afloat.)

It’s just that if you meet one of us working your local convenience store and say something like “Ooooh. You’re doing this for research, right? Because writers are all rich” make sure you do it while we’re not drinking or eating. I hear the Heimlich can crack ribs, and most of us don’t have insurance.

Second – we’re not romantic artistic types. Well, perhaps main streamers and poets are. But us, inkstained genre wretches are mostly crafts people. We have to be, as most of us – to survive – have to write two to three book a year. (And some of us are into Extreme Writing. To be fair, I also do extreme house cleaning and extreme ironing.) Again, if you MUST say stuff like “Oh, I bet the view of the mountains inspires you” or “Wouldn’t you love to write by the sea and drink in all that beauty” or “Do you dress up like your characters in order to get into the spirit to write?” make sure the writer doesn’t have anything in his or her mouth. Look at the previous paragraph as to why. (And I’ll admit I often dressed like Athena – naked – while writing Darkship Thieves, but only because I had an idea in the middle of the night and had to write.)

Third – Yes, we do work from home. Yes, we often seem to do something else all day, like wander around the yard, randomly moving stuff; painting; drawing. Do not assume this means it’s a good time to interrupt us. You have no idea what our mind is doing. If we encourage talk, go ahead. If we don’t, don’t think it’s personal. I’ve lost at least one friend who couldn’t understand that “you need to take a break” MIGHT be true, but it had to be on my schedule, not hers, and calling me halfway through the morning and expecting me to talk for hours was just not a sane assumption. (A variant on this, which never happened to me, probably because of weird accent or what have you, [the what have you being the kids who quoted Shakespeare, argued math and played an endless make-believe game as space explorers, for which they created their own world and society] is getting kids dumped on you to babysit, because you’re home anyway.)

Fourth – if someone tells you he’s a writer, believe him. This is more important as we go towards indie and self-published. I remember parties at which people asked “So, what do you do” and when I said “I write” they’d say “so, what have you published” and when I said “nothing yet” they answered “So, you’re just a housewife.” This is strange and wrong. It’s also quite normal. It is also driving a lot of new writers into really bad contracts, because they need that validation. Writing is a profession with a lot of ramp-up. If writing is what you do all day or in almost ALL your free time, then you’re a writer. You might not be publishing (or selling really well) yet, but that will come. And people should understand that. Would you tell a painter “so, you’re basically a housewife” because they haven’t had a show yet? Or haven’t sold for what you consider a decent sum? No. At least I’ve never seen anyone do it. Perhaps because painters work with brushes and canvas and have something to show for their work. Well, give us the benefit fo the doubt… We do produce a lot of paper dirty on one side. And sometimes, there might even be a novel on it.

Fifth – There is no “magical key” and I have some doubts that genius exists. So even if you know a writer who is so painfully bad you have to hide from his/her first drafts, treat him/her gently. A lot of this is ramping up and learning. I have seen a lot of people I considered hopeless have since got published and passed me on the ladder of success.

So, be kind to us writing lunatics. Ignore our odd tribal dances. We might yet furnish you with lots of stories you’ll enjoy.