Excuse me for being an author

On By Emerald BarnesIn Random Writing Updates, etc

Have you ever felt like people dis you for following your dreams?  Sometimes, I do.  Maybe they aren’t dissing me, per se, but I don’t think they understand that being an author is in fact work.  Lots of work to be exact.

Sure I spend most of my day on the computer or staring endlessly at printed sheets of paper editing my work.  But, I am in fact working.  When I’m not writing, I’m editing, shamelessly self-promoting my books, coming up with ideas for my blogs, writing those out, and the list goes on.

I’m not downing anyone in particular.  It just feels like people don’t understand us.

We create worlds for the masses to lose themselves in.  We write books to help people deal with what they’re going through.  We bring fantasy to life.  We don’t play.  We take our jobs seriously.

We don’t make much money at it, unless we’re one of the lucky ones, but we aren’t bums either.  We LOVE what we do on most days, and we find ourselves begging for more days where we’re utterly in love with our work.

I just want people to understand.  I don’t want to judge, hurt, or upset anyone.  But I want you to understand why I do what I do.

I love it.  I cannot imagine living without it.  I create worlds that I have dreamed up to help you.  Not me.  I want to entertain you – the reader.  I want you to escape through my work.  I do this for you.

I give up family time, I give up my sanity for others’ entertainment.

Being a writer isn’t easy.  It’s hard work, and it’s a miracle when I don’t end up stressed or in tears.

People make fun of authors for being eccentric.  Yes, we probably are, but you would be too with untold stories deep in your soul, begging to come out.  With the voices of unborn characters lost your memories begging to come alive.

Try to understand being an author.  Understand that we have strict deadlines, even if we set them for ourselves.  We have to promote our work, and we have to please everyone we cross paths with.  And we do it all with a smile on our face because these people are the ones that we WANT to please.

So, excuse me for being an author.  It’s what I want for my life.  It’s something that makes me happy.

12 thoughts on “Excuse me for being an author”

  1. Very well written Emerald and I agree with you. Even when we are not writing, our minds are in overdrive with stories begging to be told. A simple drive to the supermarket could be when the flash of Inspiration for a story hits you – a writer is never off duty 🙂

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  2. So what, writing isn’t as much hard work as breaking bricks with your teeth for a living, but it’s incredibly draining mentally. Most people spend their lives in a job they hate, or trying to find one that they don’t.

    Anyone who stands up and says ‘I love this, so this is what I’m going to do with my life’ should be encouraged (as long as what they love doing isn’t setting fire to forests or melting icecaps with a blow torch, etc).

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  4. This reminds me of a quote by Tom Stoppard. It was from an interview where he gave a line from an early draft of one of his plays, then he gave the final version. “What isn’t commonly understood,” he said (I’m paraphrasing), “is that it can take weeks to get from one to the other.”

    The thing that baffles people about what I do is that I’m not even trying to make money. A career, or even an unsuccessful attempt at one, they could respect that. But creating things to give them away? There’s no money in that. 🙂

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