The Struggle of Becoming a Writer

Let’s be honest. There is nothing easy about becoming a writer. It’s a time consuming, sometimes expensive venture fraught with doubt – your own and the people around you. The first step is actually making yourself write. I work every minute of the day – either doing housework, cooking, guiding my adult children, taking care of my senior mom, being a supportive wife, taking care of the pets, working on ancestry projects, or doing the work I actually get paid for – gig work. Gig work is sometimes lucrative and sometimes not. It comes with a boatload of downsides – especially with taxes. You worry if the people are legit – will they pay you? You feel guilty if you sit at your computer and are not doing something billable. All of this, at least for me, puts writing the last on my list. My husband is very supportive, but I don’t think he understands that prioritizing my dreams is my very last priority. He tells me all the time that I have valuable skills that could be put to use in some 9 – 5 job somewhere, especially for a charity organization. He knows that as a gig worker, I am undervalued. I am. And maybe I do have the skills, but if I go to work from 9 -5, I would venture to guess with all the other things I do – I would never write again.

So writing takes a back seat, prone to some kind of manic creativity that takes over when you must get part of your story on paper. Then it sits discarded, like a forgotten child left to its own devices. I started a story… a book … a novella… recently. I don’t know what it is and it is one of several in my head. I put part of it down. I listened to my characters. They had a conversation and I got stuck. I don’t know where that conversation should go. It didn’t occur to me to change their dialogue. They told me what they wanted to say. I said it and then they stopped talking so I left it on the computer screen untouched; abandoned while I worked and cleaned and went on vacation and handled life’s duties.

But what if by some miracle you get something finished? What if you finally write something that you are proud of? Then what do you do? Do you try to find an agent, send queries to a publisher, or try to self-publish? Where do you find beta readers? Where do you find illustrators? How do you afford it all when you are waiting for your literary ship to come in? What do you say to the people who don’t believe in you? When do you give up on your dream?

I read recently that my favorite author writes for 8 hours a day on vacation or not. Her most recent book came out and I pre-ordered it but I am afraid to start reading it, as excited as I am, because it will just take more time that I do not have because I have to work. I have to earn money. I have to feel like I am not such a disappointment or failure. I don’t know that I have the discipline to write 8 hours a day. I wish I did. I wish it came that easy to me. Maybe it will in time.

What’s your writing struggle?