We have a good friend who is in the arts and the other day he asked us how we went about leaving the work-a-day grind and pursuing our passion. After hitting the laugh-track button because we didn't feel our own laughter was mocking enough, we said, 'Oh, my sweet summer child,' and told him we'd talk.
This weekend we met in the cool Saturday night, and over wine, whisky and cigars explained to our friend the facts of our writing existence. The facts are cruel. The facts are ugly. The facts are that we have two part time jobs, writer and Mr. Mom. Ok, writing is a full time job with the part time Mr. Mom work added to that. Still...we're writing this as we anticipate middle and youngest daughter getting home from school. We have to drop youngest daughter off at dance and then pick up the stuff we need for chicken Marsala tonight.
A lot of naïve fools have romantic ideas about the writing life. We know we did. We're not in a beach bungalow pounding away on our Olivetti while our beautiful young 'editorial assistant' edits copy.* ** We're a middle-aged suburbanite man who keeps house between paragraphs and operates a first rate taxi-service.
We can live the 'writing life', out on the back deck, cigar and bottle of Chianti, perhaps once a month.
We advised our friend against quitting his day job and recommended he pursue his passion at night and on the weekends. We're glad to say that through the smoke and alcohol haze we saw him listening intently.
It's the smart play. And now we hear the bus...
*Thanks Robert Stacey McCain. Also, we used to have a beautiful editorial assistant.
No comments:
Post a Comment