No one knows what it's like to be a writer.
We are simultaneously exalted and repressed breed, thrust into the limelight only to be torn down when we do not meet impossible expectations.
Though it does kind of depend on what you write, I suppose.
Allow me to explain by way of analogy.
Imagine, if you will, a party. Soft jazz music wafts from the record player. The mood is casual, even lethargic. I'm there, wearing a red velvet dressing gown with a pipe tucked into the breast pocket, because this is my scenario and I can wear whatever I like. The laughter still hangs in the air from a stunningly witty-yet-inoffensive joke I have told only moments earlier. The joke has revealed that I am a writer of novels. Then someone has to go and ask the question.
"So, Stuart," she says, swilling her lemonade in lazy, concentric circles. "What are your novels about?"
My smile becomes as fixed as if I were a graven image. The ground is woefully unresponsive to my silent petitions to open up and swallow me whole (on second thoughts, I'd prefer it if the asker of the question was swallowed whole. Then I'd survive and the distraction of the earthquake would leave the query forgotten).
Of course, none of this would be a problem if I wrote literary fiction. Fiction for intellectual, mature people. Then I would simply sigh and launch into my explanation: "Well, it's really an examination of life through the eyes of the archetypal every-man. One day he simply begins to see the world in complete grey, as if his purpose has been lost. He starts engaging in spiritual quests that all fail, and eventually he has to reconcile with his own crushing reality."
Here I would pause, taking a sip of my wine glass filled with Mountain Dew whilst gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling.
"The ending isn't really resolved...maybe I'm still waiting to see how his story ends myself."
Or some such tripe.
"Oh, how scintillating and simply thrilling!" one of the ladies in my conversation circle would trill, because apparently this is one of those 1920s role-play parties that are so popular nowadays. Whispers would ripple through the group as they struggle to fathom how such a humble, deep-thinking person such as myself is still single.
But I do not write literary fiction. I write books about super-powered police who fight monsters. There are explosions and swords, and most of the main characters are teenagers.
So when the question is asked, I am reduced to mumbling something that implies they wouldn't be interested. This never works. So I give my stock response of 'it's about a supernatural police force'. Their smiles become fixed. The conversation drifts. Whispers ripple through the group as they confirm their opinions that this is why I'm single.
Because as soon as you're revealed to write anything other than literary fiction, and (gasp!) you are not yet published, you are instantly relegated to the status of a teenage girl banging out Twilight fanfics then spamming her Myspace friends with review requests.
No one understands the hours you pour into writing, the weeks, months and years you spend making your work perfect, the formatting, the cutting, and then the agonizing, soul-crushing slog of sending out your manuscript to agencies only to have it rejected, accompanied by a letter that suggests they barely glanced at your submission.
Even worse, no one can comprehend the depth of your 'fictional' world, the sleep lost as you design your characters to their tiniest details, how you bond with them as you would with children, and friends. People who are not writers of fiction haven't experienced truly losing yourself in a world of your own creation that lives and breathes and consumes your every waking moment. They haven't felt the rush of writing a climactic confrontation, the shock as you write a plot twist that you yourself weren't aware of until you typed the words, or the elation and relief that comes with concluding your story after the journey of a lifetime.
So say what you like about my childish hobby. Swish your lemonade and sneer at my dressing gown. All I have to do is close my eyes, and I'm in a different world. A world that is one-hundred-percent real, and without boundaries.
And for the record, no one can drink Mountain Dew out of a wineglass and make it look as classy as I do.
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