One of the best things about being a writer is when you’re at the dentist and he’s making small talk and asks you what it is you do for a living and you get to pause, glow with inner pride and then say out loud ‘I’m a writer.’
9 times out of 10 he’s not even listening. As far as he’s concerned I could have said I waterboard the elderly or burn down listed buildings for unscrupulous property developers. But there’s still that precious 1 in 10 times when not only do you get to crow about being a writer but the person you’re bragging to is genuinely interested. At which point they will ask – ‘What’s it like?’
Synthesising the dozens of rambling, circuitous answers I’ve given in my time I thought it’d be fun to give a little bit of an idea of what it is like being a full time writer.
So herein starts what may become a series (or may simply be the single article with an odd #1 at the top of it) of one good thing about being a full-time writer and one bad thing (because unbelievably there are a few downsides).
The Good
Time. My time is largely my own. I can take the day off. I can work through the night. I can turn up to theme parks on weekdays when they’re deserted and I’m almost always in when parcels are getting delivered. But more than that, being on your own reconnaissance means that when you are writing you’re free to take very deep dives in the name of research.
Personally there’s nothing that I find more helpful than simply wandering about in town. Eavesdropping bits of conversations. Watching how people hold themselves, how they dress, what they do with themselves. So much of my research isn’t anything to do with looking up facts and dates and history. It’s about sensing the ‘essence’ of someone. What it is that makes them stand out. The way they walk or something about their appearance. All the major characters in the Manchester Underworld series are based on people I’ve happened to see out and about.
One of the glamorous places I've found myself.
Danny Mitchum started life as a scrawny but INCREDIBLY foul mouthed bloke in the post office. He dressed and sounded like a teenage boy but had this vastly outsized presence. He still had all his face and as far as I know wasn’t involved in murder and narcotics but he felt like someone who people would know and remember and given the right circumstances possibly fear…
Walking around and simply existing in the world makes it so much easier when it comes to writing about the world. Aimless gathering of ambient information is one of my favourite things about being a writer. And as a full time writer I’ve got the time to do it.
The Bad
Time. You work a job, you know where you’re meant to be, how long you stay there and when you leave. You know what’s expected of you and you can order your life accordingly. As a writer with usually no pressing time constraints, I’m forever on the hook to pick things up for people, mind pets and children and be the plan B when other people, people with jobs and time dependent responsibilities, find their plans have fallen through.
On top of that it requires an intense amount of discipline. Waking up and getting dressed and sitting down to write every single day is a huge challenge. Unlike a lot of other work I find I need to ‘feel’ writing. The problem is, if I only ever wrote when I was feeling it I’d produce a book every ten years. So as time ticks away I’ve got to force myself to sit down and get in the mood. Every. Single. Day. It’d be too easy to do nothing. To flounce about telling dentists how I’m writer and do no actual writing. In no time at all I’ll be dead and gone. Managing your time is vital.
Time management is just one of the dozens of entirely uncreative skills that you end up developing as a full time writer. I’ve not entirely cracked it. I’ll spend mornings aimlessly wasting time and then feel awful about it for the rest of the day. But it’s something you can’t avoid. Get a calendar, get a watch, get off your phone/away from the window/put down the toast. If I’m lucky by the time I’ve wrangled myself into writing that first sentence spending a couple of hours writing will seem like a blessed relief.
There you go. First two best/worst things about being a writer. Let me know in the comments any areas that you’d be interested in me talking about. Whether or not you’re a dentist I’ll try and come up with a good answer.
Until then I’ve got the smug afterglow of someone who’s just managed to schedule some time to update his blog.
Comments