From SRP author Tracy Cooper-Posey:
I had an interesting conversation with my mother recently.
Scratch that.
I’ve had this conversation with my mother more than a few times, in various ways and forms.
But generally, the conversation goes:
Mum: “What did you do today?”
Me: “Oh, I wrote, worked on the magazine and on my business.”
Mum: “Nothing else?”
Me: “That was the whole day.”
Mum: “That sounds…boring.”
Note: She doesn’t always say boring, but the word or tone she uses implies “I would die if my days were like yours.” She can make “interesting” sound like the world is about to implode from lack of leisure. “Oh, that’s…interesting.”
Actually, this makes my mother sound judgmental. She is anything but that. The problem is, I figured out, there is a huge mismatch between what she thinks a writer does and what a writer actually does.
Even though she knows me.
It occurs to me that you might also think that a writer’s life is glamourous and adventure-filled. After all, we must experience everything that we put into our novels, right?
Side note (but not really): For several years I wrote ultra-spicy erotic romance for a now long-gone publisher who dictated the amount and type of sex we had to put into our novels, including at least one explicit sex scene before the 10% mark of the story. And for many years after, I continued to include a great deal of (somewhat toned-down) sex scenes in my romances. Guess what the most common question was I got from (sadly, mostly male) readers about my life? Yep. “So, you do all your own research for these scenes, right?”
It’s not just my mother who has a skewed view of what a writer does with their days. Most non-writers don’t have writer friends and therefore form their impressions about how a writer lives their days from TV and movies, from hints in the novels they read. (For instance, Stephen King has a lot of writer characters in his novels, and you might think you’re getting a glimpse of how writers typically live from those novels. You’re not. Trust me.)
If my mother, who has an insider’s viewpoint on how a writer lives, still thinks that I’m not living the proper writer’s life, then readers who do not know any writers at all are just as likely to have wildly incorrect ideas about how a writer lives.
So why should you care about how writers really live?
The myth of the writer’s life is attractive. It looks glamorous. Lots of royalties, book launch parties, book tours around the world, interviews and TV show appearances.
Then there’s the research trips. Six months in Peru. A year in Europe, with three months living in the Latin Quarter in Paris, and dining at salons each evening.
Plus, a writer is surrounded by interesting people. Their friends are Names. The parties they throw are legendary. They ski in Switzerland and water ski in the Caribbean.
Are your eyes rolling yet?
Yes, I’ve exaggerated just a tad. But even a slightly more modest version of that life might still be stuck in your mind, because you are exposed to so many badly exaggerated and unrealistic versions of how writers live, that it seeps in and settles in the back of your brain.
So, who cares what you think?
Well, I do. That’s why I’m writing this post.
And it isn’t just because I want you to know The Truth About Writers.
Sometimes, the erroneous beliefs you have about writers and their lives can actually hurt writers.
Huh, you say?
Here’s an example. A true one, as it happens. When our kids were still in school, the schools at the time charged parents a “lunch fee” that was supposed to offset the costs of supervising our children during the lunch break.
Families who were struggling financially could be excused from the fees, and as we had only one adult working at the time (me), we applied and were exempted from paying.
Then, six months later, we got a bill in the mail for six months’ worth of fees, plus interest, processing fees, and a fee that I think was simply there because they wanted to make us pay for lying to them about our financial situation. The bottom line was more than double what the fees alone should have been. We had three days to pay it or it would be handed off to a collection agency.
When I contacted the school to ask, “what the hell?” in the politest terms I could manage, the response was: “Well, you published a book. We saw it on Amazon. You can pay the fees and it’s dishonest of you to say you can’t.”
I’ve already told you about the most frequent questions I got (and still sometimes get) from non-writers about the spicy content of my novels. I sometimes wish I had the moxy to answer “Well, of course I research everything! I have to keep it toned down for the novels, though….”
Here are more examples.
Overcharging Based on Assumed Wealth
A writer books a home repair or renovation, and the contractor “just assumes” they’re loaded because they’ve published books. Quotes come back mysteriously higher than expected, sometimes with jokes like, “Well, you’ve got bestsellers, right?” Real result: inflated quotes, or worse, refusal to negotiate or offer standard rates.
True story: We arranged a deal with neighbours of ours who work in the roofing industry to replace our shingles. One of them, during a break, laughed and said they should probably be using $100 notes instead of shingles. Us being writers and all….
Expecting Free Work — or Exposure as Payment
Example: Friends or acquaintances assume that because the writer’s “made it,” they should be willing to write blurbs, bios, speeches, or entire articles for free — “It’s just writing, after all.” Often, this comes with: “It’ll be great exposure!” (As if exposure pays the power bill.) Also, readers expect free books. Always.
True story: I was showing my author copy of one of my books to the family at a dinner. My sister-in-law tucked the book into her handbag. “Well, you’ve got more, right?”
Another true story: The exposure thing is huge. What’s even more insidious is that now many literary magazines charge the author just to submit their work. Because the magazine feels they shouldn’t have to bear the costs of reading stories submitted by authors. And no, they don’t pay the author to publish the work.
Guilt-Tripped for Not Donating Books or Time
Schools, libraries, and community organizations ask for free books “because you’re a published author and you can afford it.” If the author says no (or asks for a discount rate), they’re seen as stingy — when in truth, each free book is a cost to them.
True story: For indie authors (of which I am one), there is no publisher who sends a carton of paperbacks to the author. I’m not sure that traditional publishers do this anymore, either. But the only way I can get my indie published books into my local library is to donate the copies. They refuse to buy them. And they will only take hardcover editions, which I can “write off as a tax deduction.”
Assumptions at Tax Time
Accountants or even friends think the author’s downplaying their income when they say they made under $20,000. “Come on, but you’ve got all those books!”
True story: The Canadian Revenue Agency questions the legitimacy of a writing career when the income is low — which is deeply ironic. If the CRA considers you’re “not really a writer” you can’t claim any tax deductions for expenses and the costs of publishing.
The endless leisure hours
I’ve saved this one for last, because it’s the one that baffles me the most. The belief seeps through conversations and comments from friends and family, readers, strangers and the media.
The belief seems to be that writers spend their days making up stories, and in between, lolling around dreaming up stories or having adventures they can use to fill the pages of their novels.
Stated baldly, like that, it sounds ridiculous. But the myth persists, anyway.
Here’s the math
This is where the myth falls apart.
The rate at which a writer writes can vary wildly. Some writers can only get 200 words an hour written, while others have trained themselves to get 2,000 words an hour down.
So, let’s go with a very average 1,000 words an hour (and I know plenty of writers who would turn pale, if they were expected to write at that rate).
The average novel is around 80,000 words.
So that’s 80 hours just to write the first draft of the novel.
Most writers (including me) have secondary and tertiary revenue streams they have to take care of. Day jobs, side jobs, side gigs, contract work, teaching, lecturing, non-fiction writing. There are a lot of ways writers work to pay the bills. But that takes time. So, let’s say that the average author can spend two hours a day, seven days a week, on their novels.
I’m closer to three hours a day, but that’s only because I’m so bloody-minded about getting the novels done, that I will sacrifice just about anything else first, except sleep.
80 hours stretched across two hours a day means 40 days to write the first draft of the novel. Presuming that nothing knocks the writer off their daily schedule and they faithfully write every single day.
But before the first draft gets written, the book must be researched, the concept built, and the book must be plotted.
Yes, some writers don’t plot. They write by the seat of their pants. But their per-hour writing rate is lower, right out of the gate. So, drop their hourly rate down to around 750 words/hour.
Once the first draft is written, the book must be “cleaned up” — for me, this is a multi-hour process with an 80-point checklist I must work though, tackling weaknesses in the prose.
This happens before I hand off to an editor.
If the book has structural flaws I have to clean them up first.
So, let’s add a meagre 10 days to plot the book and five days to clean it up. If the writer is a “seat of the pants” writer who doesn’t plot, the clean up time should be doubled or tripled.
Another true story: Dictating – text-to-speech—sounds like a no-brainer that every writer in the world should adopt. As I explained here, by the time I clean up the mess that dictated prose leaves behind, it ends up that I write faster with just a keyboard.
That’s 95 days to create a manuscript that is ready to be edited.
The editor does their bit, and the manuscript comes back to the writer. Cleaning up the edited manuscript can take anywhere from hours to days (and sometimes, weeks).
Let’s say one week, at 2 hours per day of writing time. That’s modest.
We’re up to 102 days to a completed novel.
Then the author must either start submitting to agents and publishers, or else self-publish.
I won’t calculate how long that process takes, because it varies too much and that isn’t the point I’m trying to make with this math. Both types of post-writing processes take weeks.
Writing takes time.
The point I’m trying to make is that writing takes time.
A writer who is dedicated to finishing a book must find the time to write it. Usually, that means giving up some other activities. Social events, parties, watching TV, doom scrolling, exercise (often!), sleep (not advised, but writers still try it). All of them go out the window if a writer really wants to finish a book.
How we get books written is by structuring our days and making them as boring as possible. The same day, day in and day out. This minimizes the stress of having to deal with unusual and “interesting” events and saves our executive brain processing budget for the writing of scenes.
Boring is good. But there still isn’t enough time to write. Ever.
And I can just hear someone out there saying, “Well, if you want to finish a book, just spend more time each day writing it.”
Which seems to make sense.
My schedule
And here is where we reach the point that got me to write this post in the first place.
Here’s an average day for me:
4:30 am: Get up, breakfast, quick round of emails to put out any fires, answer anyone screaming at me.
6:00 am: Down to my desk, a few pre-writing tasks, then into writing fiction.
9:00 am: Make myself stop writing fiction and turn to my side gig that pays most of the bills: I’m the managing editor of two magazines and their associated sites and newsletters.
I’m fortunate that the cook in our household is not me. So, lunch is gobbled down at the kitchen counter, and I get back to my desk.
2:00 pm: Stop working on the magazines and switch over to the “everything else” of my fiction writing business: cleaning up manuscripts, marketing, writing emails and blog posts, social media, formatting books, organizing covers, coordinating editing. There are a lot of moving parts. Just writing blog posts and emails takes up to two hours each day.
Dinner: Also gobbled down at the counter. I’ll sometimes stop to do the dishes, but I often ask my daughter to do them instead.
After dinner I transfer to the recliner and work on my laptop, while Mark watches TV. I sort-of watch from the corner of my eye, but if the work I’m doing requires anything other than superficial thought, I have to focus on the laptop instead.
8:00 to 8:30 pm: Stop working. Stretch. Go to bed.
+++++++++
This is every day of the week, including weekends and public holidays. Yes, that’s a 14-hour day. Every day.
And notice that working out and healthy things like taking time to walk or meditate and any sort of cleaning and general house maintenance are not on there.
And here’s why I’m writing the post. Friends of ours emailed us this morning and said, “Hey, we’re in town on Saturday. We’ll stop by for coffee mid-morning. Can’t wait to see you! It’s been so long!”
That email has completely derailed my schedule, because someone has to clean the house before our guests arrive.
I’m facing a familiar decision. Do I cut down the fiction writing time in order to squeeze in the cleaning?
And yes, I had to give up writing time to get the cleaning onto the schedule (which sounds all formal and corporate-speak, but honestly, without my calendar and my task manager, my entire life would implode because I forgot to do something small, invisible to everyone else, easily overlooked, but critical to keeping my life on the rails.)
The daily workouts, cleaning and gardening that are NOT on my schedule? I keep trying to find the time to do them but cannot bring myself to give up even more fiction writing.
Usually, I do what I will be doing this weekend: I clear decks, and temporarily off-load fiction writing and as much of my formal, contractual obligations as I can, and use that time to take care of cleaning, gardening, maintenance or simply to have time off because I need a break.
So no, just “spend more time writing each day” isn’t possible. I’m fighting tooth and nail to keep the hours I have.
The Real Writer’s Life
I’ve spoken to enough writers to know that I am not unusual. This maxed out life is the reality.
Burnout is a real thing for many writers these days.
The endless leisure hours to think up stories? That happens in the shower, sometimes. Or when I’m falling asleep at night.
The research trips? Parties? The Parisian bohemian lifestyle? Myths. They always have been.
Even Hemingway, whom non-writers seem to feel spent his life in Parisian cafés or hunting ivory in Africa, or fishing off the Florida coast, actually had a rigorous writing schedule that included taking the phone off the hook and ignoring everyone. True fact: He built one of the first standing desk. (I believe Churchill liked to work standing up, too, so he might be the first.)
J.K. Rowling checked into remote Scottish hotels and locked herself in her hotel room for weeks in order to get books finished.
The fabulously wealthy writers like Rowling are only 1% of all published writers. The rest of us have to juggle our days because we can’t afford to off-load everything else onto staff or contractors, or hole up in hotels.
__________
The myths about writers will probably never die — they’re far too romantic to give up. But if you take anything away from this, let it be that behind every book you love is a writer who has fought hard for the hours to create it.
It isn’t champagne and Paris cafés. It’s persistence. It’s sacrifice. And it’s a kind of stubborn joy that keeps us showing up at the desk, day after day, even when the rest of life crowds in.
That’s the truth about writers. And honestly? I wouldn’t trade it for Paris.
(Except maybe for a weekend…!)
Tracy Cooper-Posey
SRP Author
