10 Reasons Writing Fiction Is the Best. Thing. Ever.
- You can explain away talking to yourself as “trying out a conversation between characters in my novel.”
- Your much-used acronym for “work in progress” is alarmingly similar to the acronym for “rest in peace” and this adds an air of clever mystery to your role when casually mentioning it among non-writers. (Plus, you only have to change one letter to appropriately re-categorize any book that’s going nowhere.)
- You can overindulge in any of the three “C”s with impunity: Coffee, Chocolate, Cocktails.
- You can do your job almost anywhere. While still stuck in bed, or at your desk in a chair. You can write in a car, you can write in a bar. You can write on a train or in the air on a plane. You can write on a yacht, in a full parking lot, and (though you prob’ly ought not), while sat on the pot. You can write Way Out West, or wherever works best. That’s the thing about writing that makes it so fun. (Now I just need a laptop I can read in the sun.)
- You can do mean (or wonderful) things to real life friends, family members and enemies simply by putting them in your novel and changing their names.
- You can write new friends, family members and enemies into existence when the real-life ones shun you after seeing what mean (or wonderful) things you’ve done to their alter egos in your novel.
- You have a ready and reasonable excuse for why you’re reading a novel when you’re supposed to be doing the dishes, cleaning the garage, or picking up your mother-in-law from the airport: “I’m working.”
- You can refer to Ernest Hemingway, Nick Hornby, Marilynne Robinson and Jane Austen as your “co-workers.”
- Eavesdropping = Research.
- And finally, you get to answer the question “What do you do?” with, “I’m a writer.”
Got any more to add? Leave ’em in the comments.
6 Comments
Elaina
This is a great list. There aren’t others that I can think of at the moment but I will say that I work very hard at #3. Especially the coffee & cocktails part.
Steve P., ND
Dedication is an admirable quality for a writer. I think “working very hard” at #3 on the list would qualify as “dedication.”
Nicole
I would like to add an addendum to #3:
the four Cs to include Coke (um, er, Coca Cola).
Steve P., ND
Yes. I’d modify mine to “Diet Coke,” but that adds the clutter of a “D” to my alliteration, so yours works better. And thanks for clarifying the nature of the Coke, so as not to invite investigation by the DEA.
Merrie Destefano
And you get to hang out with really cool people: other writers.
And you get to sleep in, do book deals over lunch, e-mail your BFF (who also happens to be a writer) about said book deal on your Blackberry . . .
Sorry. Today was a good day.
: )
Steve P., ND
You are apologizing for a good day? What’s wrong with you?? Good days are to be celebrated, silly. And the words “book deal” must not be left unexplained. Do tell…