Writing As A Career

Over on Facebook, a friend put up this post and it got me thinking about my "career" (laugh) as a writer, both in its present state and in the future. Could I do that? Could I be a full time writer. I dream of it, like all of us that write do, but reality is a different beast all together.

Now, a few things to note. I am not published. I'm inching closer, I think, and believe in my heart of hearts that one day you will be able to go to your bookstore or click on to Amazon and find my books their, but for now I still proudly bare the banner of "aspiring author." But I'm not approaching it from the angle of a NAIVE aspiring author.

I've always approached the business rather pragmatically and think that I understand parts of it...and other parts I don't, but still I don't get all ruffled over form rejections or nonresponses they way some do. I understand that this is part of the game, but when you enter the game all bets are off. The publishing world is a brutal one and I've been through the grind. I've talked about the "upheaval" for the last few months and while I'm not ready to talk in great detail about it, I left my agent in April. It's left me borderline crushed and I've been in a malaise ever since. But that's not the purpose of this post, I want to talk about my career. Leaving my agent is a story for another time.

I have a pretty good gig as a teacher right now. For the second year in a row I am teaching nothing but seniors. It's a different beast, but one that I think I've managed to wrangle in, but no matter what, it's not a bad gig. I make decent money, I have decent benefits, good hours and I even get to teach creative writing this year. But as with all teachers, there is the feeling of "the call" when it comes to our jobs. I'll admit that the last few years have been trying on my sense of "the call" but even at its darkest, I love what I do. That moment when you see a kid "get it" or when you teach them something that they've never learned before. This year I had to teach a senior how to write a signature. Those are the things that don't show up on any teaching evaluation and the reason I do the job. I have said more than once that I can't imagine not teaching. Plus, I've worked at least one job or another since I was in middle school. I don't know what it's like not to go to a job.

That being said, the fantasy of being a full time writer is appealing but, as I see it right now, a complete and total fantasy that I don't think I could indulge right now or any time in the near future. I grew up understanding the stress of "money" and more to the point not having a lot. And that understanding drives me and my "dream" of being a full time writer. I know the nature of the business and understand that it is highly unlikely that I'll ever be successful enough to not work as a teacher. It's a reality that isn't a reflection of what I believe my talent level is, (One of the great nuggets my former agent gave me was to never doubt you or insult the work. You are great) it's just an understanding that my name isn't Rowling, King, Patterson or some celebrity writing the memoir of my years before I became a viral YouTube sensation.

This doesn't mean I've completely given up the fantasy. Who knows, maybe SEASONS OF DESTINY or THE FALCON & THE CROW or THE LOST SCIONS will hit huge, get me a deal for a second rate movie that will fail miserably at the box office while I'm sitting in my custom made writing shed writing and tooling around town in my matte black Dodge Challenger. But I know this is an extreme fantasy. I'll be honest, I'd be ridiculously satisfied if I made enough money so I could take an early retirement in ten years or my wife could quit working full time. Ah, this is the stuff of fantasies. I need to write for now. I can feel the gears turning a little and the rust falling off. I've got ideas to flesh out and try to make work in my notebook. Wish me luck.

And look for that matte black Dodge Challenger in your neighborhood.

Month In Review: August 2016

August was August. The Dog Days of Summer. The countdown to the return to school. The end of summer school and more often than not a mad scramble to finish whatever it is that I was trying to accomplish. But this summer was different. It's been a weird summer, as I've documented in these Month In Review posts. So what about August?

WRITING: Another miserable month. I scrapped another project, the prank war novel. I couldn't get the voice or story down. It wasn't working for me. As my friend Mike Winchell says a writer has to write, but I've been stagnant this summer. I can't get a groove on any of these projects. I've got some ideas of how to shake this, but we'll see if I can pull it off. I've been doing a lot of "studying" lately and reading some good writing books that I hope will help me moving forward. I know how to write, that's pretty obvious but I need to figure out some things about what's wrong with what I'm writing that it's not catching on. I'll get there, I know I will. I agree with Mike that a writer has to write, but sometimes you need to clean the machine and I'm doing that now. I started a "Abandoned Project" blog that I may or may not get around to because I have some ideas that can work, including one that I could never do but I really love enough that I may do it anyway, just to practice and another that I may be able to modify to work for me. I also came up with another big book fantasy idea that I'm not rushing into yet because I have some actual research and prep to do before writing it.

For now though, I'm studying. I'll find the words at some point.

READING: I had a heck of a reading month. I finished 11 books and I'm working on a few more. The interesting thing is between the end of July and most of August, I read 7 books in a row that all are pretty much going to make my best of the year list. So, here's the highlights:

• The Forgetting Moon: Long formed this on the blog. Heavy metal epic fantasy. Great book, loved it.
• Paper Girls, Volume One: A brilliant graphic novel about a group of paper girls that get caught up in some strange events involved in some crazy supernatural adventures the day after Halloween. 
• Hamilton: The Revolution: I love stories of stories and this is THE story right now in pop culture. I loved reading the inspiration behind the music and the story. The Chernow book that inspired the musical is high on the reading queue as part of my "research" and it was brilliant. 
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: It was nice to be in Potterland again and it was a highly entertaining story that I breezed through. The one thing that it was missing though was JK Rowling's voice. It just lacked her...heart? But still a cracking good HP story.
• The Serpent King: I single served this book, reading it in one day and it was brilliant. I long formed it on Goodreads and may longform it here on the blog.
• Save the Cat: A writing book that was recommended to me by someone. It was interesting and eye opening to an extent that it has me rethinking some of my writing enough that I want to revisit it. 

Read a couple of graphic novels, some good, some not so good, but enjoyable. I'm presently engaged (once again) with some Dragonlance and then going to move into some more epic fantasies for my "study."

I'm on pace, as of today, to read 78 books this year. I haven't read as much epic fantasy as I initially planned, but I'm making progress. I'm singled out some books to read in the coming weeks and we'll see how it plays out. 

WATCHING: A lot of watching too.

• THE OLYMPICS: I watched a ton of this, even while I was at work. I love the Olympics despite the usual political turmoil that surrounds them. If you follow me on Twitter, you know how much I love the Olympics. 
• THE HUGO AWARDS: I live streamed them and tweeted as I watched. I'm not going to get into great detail about my feelings about the Hugos, but if you've gotten to know me via social networks, I think you can figure it out. 
• JAMES BOND: It's been a Jame Bond summer for me and I'll be long forming my Bond thoughts at some point in the next few weeks. 
• ANT-MAN: I need to redo my Marvel Cinematic Universe ranking sheet. This is a fun movie. 
• 30 for 30: Pony Excess: Another of the 30 for 30s that I love. It's just so good and there's something that's so satisfying knowing that smug prick Craig James eventually falls flat on his face. 

DID: Lifting. Planned the first two months of school

So, with the sun setting on Summer 2016, I have nothing to show for it. But here's to the beginning of the school year and the hope that I find a groove.