Juiced On Writing

Part 3 of a Series, Final.

Previously I’ve discussed the writer’s mentality and some dictums, chiefly towards Writers being writers if they simply write (but what exactly is writing, anyway?) and Writers should be writing daily. For the final part of this series I would like to talk about those other dictums – the ones which, again, appear generally augmented by the writing community (sometimes at a superficial level, sometimes believed without question even in this modern age). But the main concern is where these myths or dictums are also heavily expected from our families, our communities, and anyone else with an opinion on writing and writers.

I’m talking about a mindset here, and its prevalence throughout the industry, no matter how much we try to stop it. And most writers I’ve read in interviews or on their own blogs at one time or another slip up with their own words and resort back to the common myths about their own writing – even if they don’t really believe it. The following are – for me, some of the strangest thinkings I have come across in an industry, but you can bet that I will slip up myself on many occasions and fall for both of them. I’m only a poor struggling writer who’s muse has left her, afterall…

1. Writers Should Be / Are / Will Be Poor and Struggling

Struggling – yes! No one who’s ever lifted a pen to paper and written anything would suggest that writing is easy. It’s darned hard work. It can consume your life, give you headaches, sometimes even produce a personality (overly stereotyped) which seeks solice through the company of some kind of habit or addiction (alcohol, drugs, nicotine, caffeine or for me – chocolate does the trick).

But poor? Why? This perception of struggling poor artists who don’t become successful – or famous – until they’ve died is steeped in our history and cultural mentality. But most writers nowadays work other jobs to support themselves until they get that coveted multi-novel contract, freelancers take on as many jobs as possible to bring in an income, and there can’t be many writers out there who suddenly resign from their day jobs and decide they’re going to spend all day pursuing their writing dreams without risking losing their homes, or perhaps even a family. Not unless they’re lottery winners or already fortunate enough to be able to retire early, or are being supported by other family members.

Poor is where you’re working two or even three jobs to support your family and you’re living off hand-me-downs. But that’s a state of your current circumstances away from that other side of you – as a writer. There are many tales of well-known later-day authors who were deemed poor when first writing (and the tale would only be told if they are now successful and incredibly rich from their writing, afterall – we’d never hear about them if not a fairytale ending to their poorness).

But there are equally as many if not more tales of people who came from various financial circumstances to become successful at writing. Inherited wealth and successful writers just don’t go hand-in-hand in the modern-day needs for fairytale hopes, though, do they? Being rich-already just isn’t sexy. We want those people to be rubbish writers, not good ones. We want them to fail. We want justice, we want hope, we want to live the fairytale dream of rags-to-riches via a huge novel contract. And to do that we need the rags.

No wonder my relatives, and the community around me still pursue the thought that to be an artist and writer, I must struggle and I must come from a poor background. Because only poor people can make good writers? Because poorness leads to an added motivation to write to make money?  No, I don’t think so. Talent in writing, in getting a point or story across, comes from places within you that don’t know wallets or bank accounts. My muse isn’t interested in that financial rubbish.

Starving = Interesting?

Are poor starving people more interesting then? Is that what this is all about? Life experiences, anyone?

I actually do come from a poor (in many people’s eyes) childhood background, having a widowed and elderly mother. As kids, my brother and I were clothed in hand-me-downs and never quite up with the latest fashion trends. From there I went on to a successful and quite well-paid career in I.T. And more lately, I gave up that career to become a stay-at-home mother – and with that came time to pursue my own writing dream. But that life-change was perhaps placed at one of the more unfortunate periods in my own life, and many others, as the world goes into a small recession. Without the income, our family can barely afford our car fuel requirements, we are struggling over buying a new family car, and even buying school uniforms for our daughter is getting a little stressful.

Does that make me qualified in life experience? Yes, perhaps so. But so are the families around the block from me, the women in the school playground, my husband who is skilled enough to retain a job (so far) to support me and his family, or the women and men I left behind in that I.T. career – who may be making more money than me, but who still have cancer scares, or family skeletons, or heartbreak, or lust, sloth, greed or conflict in their own lives also.

Starving = Motivation?

Are poor starving people more motivated then? Is that what this is all about? Drive to make money, anyone? But through writing? Seriously? How many JK Rowlings or Dan Strongs can the world support at any one time? How many other authors – perhaps even better than the best-sellers – have not been recognised by critics or the general public, have not made the huge amounts of money such celebrity writers are rumoured to have done? But if they wrote a letter with their submission saying,

“Dear Editor.
I’m quite poor, and struggling to make ends meet. I feel this makes me qualified as a motivated writer for you. Therefore, I am writing as I would really appreciate a contract as I’m motivated to make a lot of money now. I believe we share that same motivation, so let’s make this happen together, shall we?
Yours faithfully, Starving Author.
PS. I can’t afford the return SAP, but my writing’s so good you won’t be needing it. Trust me on that one.”

Should a poor starving person use the drive to survive motivate them into writing? I’m not completely convinced of that one myself. It would probably be a better bet to work at something else first, rather than waiting around to become successful at writing. It would surely be a safer bet for the sake of your stomach, anyway.

Writers write for other reasons, because they are a writer, because they need to write.

Writing = Starving?

There we have it. The final turned-upon equation. The fact that poor struggling writers can somehow find resolution of their fairytales by making good – once they’ve died normally. And now the family and community have decided that writing is such a poorly paid career – in our own lifetimes – that it’s a poor career choice at that. Why would our fathers want us to be poor and struggling as writers? Why wouldn’t our siblings worry if we announced we were suddenly writers now?

Most people think writers don’t make much money. Most people think that there’s only one of two people out there who can make a living (or worse – an extremely good living) out of writing. That’s because most people know someone in the family (if it’s not themselves) who holds dreams of being a writer, but knows that they can’t make any money out of it, so therefore it’s a waste of a good lifetime, destroyer of families, a devil walking the earth in creative angel form.

No, only a few lucky talented writers (like JK Rowling) can make good in this world – emphasis on the luck and talent there. And we, although the dearest family members, have no chance of that. None, zip, nada. Where many more talented writers have gone, so will we – down the plughole of liquidation, bankruptcy, alcoholic poisoning, or general bad vibes. We will NOT make a living from writing. So there!

Writing means poorness, struggling, no money. So very there!

Um, okay. Thanks for that. I guess I shouldn’t mention that quite a few people out there are making a relatively okay living out of it, then? Like bringing in a similar wage per month than you are. Should I mention that?

Nope, we’re not interested in that one. Writers are meant to be poor and struggling. Or bestsellers and rich. There’s no middle-ground in that one. There’s no comfortable career just ticking over.

Writing without the Struggle

So, from those qualified in living, or those who have lived via the school of hard-knocks. Which one of us should be the writer out of all of that? The answer is probably all – or none of us. A financial state isn’t a measure of who should or will be a good writer. Life experiences aren’t either. I would hope that at some point in my life that I manage to write and be published, and when somebody says some good things about my stories, my biggest hope is that it’s not put down to being poor and struggling as an author in my own past.

2. Waiting Around For my Muse

I’m not going to write this section of my article today. My muse – currently a big strapping muscle-bound guy who doesn’t wear too much clothing (don’t ask – I choose to have no idea what this is saying about me) went out to lunch without me yesterday, and hasn’t arrived back. I think he’s having an affair with somebody else. He’s left me in the lurch, so I can’t write today. Instead, after staring at the screen for two hours, with tears in my eyes, I’m going to throw a hissy-fit tantrum, and I’m going to go wallow, eat lots of chocolate, and curse him until he shows up.

Which could be in a few hours time, or could be weeks later. He works on some kind of alien time where one of his days is equal to five of mine. And he has no perception of how old I’m getting while waiting around for him.

When he does finally make an appearance, I’ll admit it to you now – I’ll flutter my eyelashes, try not to offend him, bow to his intellect, and sit him down at the paper. When he makes a move, I will fawn all over him, and love him again. My Muse knows that, of course, but I need him, so I know who wears the pants in this relationship, even if he’s currently wearing a toga.

Writers Block.

That old chestnut (what does “old chestnut” as a phrase actually mean?).

This is another big old rule of the writing world. To be a writer, thou must be blocked on occasion. Your muse WILL go missing in action. Inspiration WILL not arrive when you want it. Thou WILL struggle for ideas. You WILL miss your MUSE. Writing WILL stop or be BLOCKED.

It’s only fair – it happens to all of us, right?

Other artists do it nowadays also. Painters are blocked by a lack of muse. Sculptors, potters, children’s book artists…scrapbookers. Yes, scrapbookers. As a crafting hobby, and one I’ve been involved in for many years now, I’ve even been known to have written articles on the subject of methods to stop a scrapbooker’s block in inspiration. Scrappers block – yes, the craft thought the name Writer’s Block was so understandable that we stole it for our own creativity problems also. Lately scrapbookers have re-termed this “scrappers block” around on themselves.

Instead of having this entity sitting outside of their own work – a block or wall for instance, scrappers now say that they’ve lost something in, “I’ve lost my mojo”. Mojo stands for motivation or inspiration – it’s another name for a muse, of course. But instead of being blocked by something out of our control (like a big block or wall), at least the scrapbooking community has started centreing this responsibility to something more internalised – “I’ve lost…”, “I’ve lost my…” So if you’ve lost it then, then surely you’re responsible for finding it again, surely you’re in control?

I do it all the time myself, and will most probably be found doing it again in the near future, without much guilt. I will wait around for the right time to try something, I will even allow my muse several days off while I concentrate on other things. I will occasionally even suggest I’ve lost my mojo, as though somebody else can possibly be interested in finding it for me. People don’t even help me find my lost keys around here, what chance they might find my lost imagination?

But we say it out loud because other artists or writers know what we’re talking about and nod in sympathy. It’s a community thing. It makes us feel understood, part of a small but defined community, distanced from that other world, the world of the non-artist. Creatives have muses, and muses go missing occasionally. It’s the done thing.

So, I got my own muse trained so well, he’d go missing in action at the slightest need of mine to validate that I was indeed “creative”. Creativity going hand in hand with creative blocks and all that. If you don’t have a creative block, then how can you know you’re creative in the first place, right? I can see my Muse nodding sagely at this, and giving me my wish – while he goes off and has that affair or his, the blighter!

Except -

• When I was working as a Manager of twenty staff in a stressful, high-demand I.T. job which had to deliver multiple projects in time, on budget, without expensive (and we’re talking millions of pounds here) stoppages. I think my own employers might have had something to say if I, or my team members, all decided that their muses had gone out to lunch and we couldn’t work right then.
• When I finally got taken to a restaurant for a wedding anniversary dinner and was settled down, feeling like an adult again, waiting for my carefully chosen starters and mains, my mouth salivating over the very thought of what was about to come, and the news came from the kitchen that the chef had suffered a cooking block, and had stormed off in a tantrum tonight because his creativity was strangled. In that case, I think I might have something to say about that one. And it wouldn’t be nice, or even very creative.

Ah, I hear you say – but those are professions, not writing, and where other people’s money or wages are involved, or deadlines are involved, then they’re not going to allow themselves to have creative blocks, are they?

Fine, I answer, fluttering my eyelashes because my Muse has just arrived, intrigued by the argument he’s seeing beginning, and whether he’s somehow involved in it. Let me give you another example, then…

The Kids Club Non-Profession

I basically volunteer (the pay is so poor, it costs me more to put my daughter into it than I make in wages) for part-time work at the local school’s before and after-school kids club. It’s where parents who work can take their children to keep them entertained and safe while they work outside of normal school hours.

Child-caring is a profession, yes, and a very important one, with rules and regulations, certifications and qualifications in the profession for those working in it. However, I don’t consider this a career – for me, as much as I respect and support those other people working there. I won’t be trained into the profession, I’m there as a support worker, and there basically to allow my daughter as an only child, some social outlets with other children in her school. She loves it, it’s good for her, and for me – it’s been a good way into the community, and a social outlet myself. It’s probably also good fodder for life experience and for my own writing, come to that. And it gets me out of the house.

My Muse legitimately hates the Kids Club work, and shrinks up when I go there. He’s had enough of children – admittedly there is a lot of noise and free-play, and tantrums, and rules to live by. And the environment at Kids Club isn’t great for any kind of thinking – other than emergency action mode when a child is about to do something dangerous. If you’re a school teacher you may be able to picture what it’s like to have thirty kids together in a small room, all at once. But then – you get to order them to shut-up and listen to you. At Kids Club, the kids are encouraged to explore play in any free-form way they please. Normally that involes lots of noise and movement. It’s a living breathing riot, full of colour, sound, arguments, flying toys, occasional squawks and crying. It also works. But boy is it hard work also.

Although I might have given him a novel planning idea to muse over whilst walking to Kids Club that afternoon, by the time the first child arrives from school, it’s flown out the window, along with my Muse if I didn’t have him shackled to the snack-table.

Instead of being fed grapes and generally pandered to, when my shackled Muse is dragged to Kids Club with me, all he can do is supervise kids having more fun than him, and spend a good lot of time mopping down toilets or in conversation with several little girls about what they did in school that day, or what birthday party they were going to that weekend, or pretending to enjoy eating plastic food delivered with an expensive invoice.

In complete and utter contradiction to this everyday activity chaos which bores my Muse terminally, the entire Kids Club gives children the opportunity to be one hundred percent creative – from complete freedom in playing choices, to copious games and toys, to entire cupboards full of books, and crafting materials. The walls are covered in the kid’s artistic creations. And as a playworker assistant, my supervisors will turn to me, and ask me to come up with an idea of what the children could be doing or making today.

My Muse looks at all the brightly coloured paint, coloured papers, plastic scissors, glue, glitter, felt-tips, fabric pieces, cartons, scraps, how-to books, games, and expectant children’s faces, and he covers his ears against the solid wall of kid’s laughter and screams, makes a little wah-wah baby-noise, blinks his eyes a few times to hold back the tears. And as a professional, he will, after this slight pause, come up with some kind of idea. Because it’s a job, and someone has asked for it. It might not be a great idea, mind you. But it’s an idea.

My fellow co-workers look at me a bit oddly sometimes, after the long pause where my incredibly uncreative ideas come into being. For them, after years of practice, and training, creating ideas for the kids to do comes as second nature. They probably don’t even consider this as being creative at all. And they most certainly wonder what my own problem is. But I can’t explain to them that my Muse hates the rowdy garish environment and decided they aren’t feeding him enough grapes to work for them. Nope, I definately can’t tell them that. Not without being laughed out of the place.

Writing without the Muse

Despite not being paid for it, despite not having an agreed deadline for it (that can easily be resolved by enforcing my own deadlines) I have decided that I can’t wait around for my Muse when he goes off and has those filthy affairs away from me, that rotten so-and-so! As a professional that wouldn’t be allowable in any other industry, so why should it be allowed as a pandering when we are writing?

If my muse goes off, if I suffer from Writer’s Block (or even scrappers block), if I lose my Mojo, then I no longer have the belief system that allows for that, as a professional. The key to fighting that mindset is to just get on with it. The ideas or work might not be brilliant, but you never know – the missing Muse might well find himself ousted by someone else moving in on his territory if he keeps that unprofessionalism up. And that someone else might be just Me.

Previously :

• Part 1 – Writer’s Write, Right?
• Part 2 – Writer’s Write, Daily?

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