Wednesday, September 22, 2010

What Did You Expect?

First of all, nope, no new words...my Potato Man says it all....



Buuuuut that will hopefully be changing today :D

Right now, I actually have a question for everyone out there...is your writer's life what you thought it would be? I know before I began this journey, before I decided to really start doing this "for real", for publication, I had this vision of what my life as a writer would be like.

And boy was I wrong LOL

I imagined myself putting my kids down for a nap or for bed, or sending them off for school, and sitting down at my computer and immediately pounding out pristine prose that only needed a quick proofread and a few minor tweaks. Everyone else would love it (okay, I knew not EVERYONE would love it), and I'd have offers pouring in the moment I sent queries out....

Well, I was a little more realistic than that :D but seriously, the way it really is and the way I thought it would be are very far apart. I honestly had NO idea how much work goes into writing a book. Didn't understand that I would agonize over the perfect word...that I would be WAITING forever for everything...that the rejections would sting as much as they do (and that there would be so many of them LOL).

I also never imagined how incredible it would feel to have someone read my book and LOVE it....how exciting it would be to sign with my agent, or the complete euphoria (followed and forever after mixed in with terror :D ) that would accompany my very first sale to a publisher, or the happy obsession I'd feel staring at my brand new cover :)

Everything about this crazy world of writing is just so much MORE than I ever expected, both the good and the bad.

So I'm wondering, is it everything you expected?

9 comments:

Christine Fonseca said...

I'm with you - it is way different than I expected...and so much MORE!

TK Richardson said...

Great post! And no it is not what I expected. It is harder and much more rewarding! :)

Jan Markley said...

Love the potato man! Keep the word count going! I just did a couple of posts about the writers life - one about what I've learned in the first year since my novel was published. The work of a writer never ends whether it is rewriting or marketing - which led me to write a post called 'Be the egg encrusted fork.'

Tere Kirkland said...

The waiting and the rejections don't end once you get an agent, I'm learning, but I do have this feeling of validation I never had before that helps keep me going.

Anonymous said...

I really had no concrete plans when I started writing. Oh, I dreamed of publication of course, but I had absolutely NO idea what it would look like to write, revise, edit, tank on queries, come a hair's breadth away from quitting, find AWESOME writerly pals, etc, etc, etc.

Now, I have nightly homework that's NEVER DONE, LOL!

But I really enjoy it, so, there ya go. ;)

Great post! :D

Elana Johnson said...

Well, no. It's just like Adam Levine said once (I think it was AL), once you get paid to do something, it's a job.

So writing is a job now, and I don't like that. So I'm working on making it more fun than work.

Stephanie McGee said...

I love your progress graphic. It's awesome.

As for this process, I don't know that anything can ever be the way you expect or think it is once you get into it.

Carolyn V. said...

I had no idea how hard it was either. So much work!

Anonymous said...

Some things I expected but not all things. I'm pleasantly surprised and dismayed all in one. But loving the ride.