Writing as a Career

I have to admit, I’m a slug. I do not like work. I’ve never actually had a job I enjoyed. My current job (stay at home mom) leaves plenty to be desired. So when talk comes up about treating my writing as a career, my eye starts to twitch.

Suzanne talked about treating writing like a career on her RTB column. She made some great points. But I hate thinking about my writing as work. I’ve tried scheduling time to write, but I feel the yoke of oppression when I do so. Yeah, I should take it more seriously, but I do not have the ability or inclination to make it my number one priority.

Anyone with small children can tell you that they have a way of making the world revolve around them. They have a sense for when my mind and time are occupied with something else and so they strike. Today my toddler found her milk on the counter, climbed up and tried to fill her own cups with it. I had milk spilled all over the counter plus 4 cups half filled with liquid. This is typical of her behavior. My older ones know when I’m writing because that is when they feel it necessary to get into knockdown drag out fights.

I’m not using these as excuses for not writing, they are just things that take priority over my time. I still manage to get my pages in. I have scheduled my day so that I have certain chores I do on certain days. Today it was the day I clean and mop the family room. It’s done and now I have the freedom to write as much as I want barring my children’s interruptions.

Anyway, for me to think about my writing as a career at this time is a practice in frustration. My family is not going to understand the importance of what I’m doing until I actually sell. Hubby definitely has the attitude that if it doesn’t make me a dime, it must be a hobby. Not a particularly sympathetic way of looking at things, but I think it is a fairly common view from non-writers. He is not going to be real excited to come from a day of work and fix dinner so I can write unless there is a contract involved. And that’s okay; it is just another hurdle to work around.

But it can be done. I think the obstacles in my path make me a more efficient writer. It forces me to focus on each and every word on the page. I do very little in the way of revisions because I don’t have the luxury of going back and making change after change. When I write, it had better be damn close to what I want because my opportunity to make drastic changes could fly out the door at anytime.

A side note…
I’m going to leave the blogger comments on until I can figure out what in the heck is wrong with my haloscan. It’s a bit awkward but feel free to use whichever works for you.