The key to a working social life as a writer is to make sure that people aren’t bothering you when you’re writing. You need to do what it takes to make people close to you understand that you need space when writing. No taking out the trash, no errands, nothing but writing. Stand firm, make your close ones understand, and you’ll find it easier to write.
– TDH
Imagine you are at work. Either as an office worker, a police officer, or any job that requires you to be on-site. Suddenly someone calls your phone and asks you to drop everything and run home to do some laundry, maybe run an errand or just take out the trash – NOW!
You could do that, but your boss would unlikely let you come back the day after.
For some reason it is often assumed that if you’re a writer, writing and words comes easy to you.
Writing really is hard enough as it is.
To get an idea is very easy, as Rod Serling himself said in an interview, but to put that idea into words, on paper, is not. You don’t really write these words on to the paper, you bleed them.
When you’re writing, you’re writing, nothing else.
What also seems to be overlooked when it comes to writing is the beginning of the career for any kind of writer, be it an author or a journalist. They have to start somewhere, and still that somewhere are places that will provide experience, but not cash. However the experience will lead to cash – eventually.
The more experience a writer receives, especially a journalist, the closer to a paid job they get. Which means the less time spent writing, the more time spent doing other things than writing for experience, the longer it will take for a journalist to end up with a paid job.
Unfortunately not everyone gets this. Writing is like any other job. You need to show up, well rested, and work as much as you can each day. You can’t just do whatever, put off writing for the sake of having fun with your friends or family. Or do it later at night. Because if you’ve been out all day having fun, you won’t have enough time or energy to do the job as well you would have if you were let to follow a proper working schedule.
As THD writes in his post and needs to be repeated again, “Writing really is hard enough as it is.”
You really only have two luxuries as a writer. You have forced yourself to do it because you love it, and that you can have a more flexible working schedule. But flexible doesn’t mean less hours a day or week. It only means you can start one day at 10 am instead of 9 am, or that you can burn the midnight oil if you have to. It doesn’t mean you can spend only an hour a day writing and researching, and think you will be a successful writer or a journalist.
As a writer and a journalist you might already have found that out already, but your friends and family needs to not just understand that, but respect that. Because you wouldn’t go to there job and disturb them, so why should you tolerate their disturbance when you’re working?
