The writer Harlan Ellison was once asked by a fan how hard it was to “break in” to the writing business. Harlan’s been steadily producing work since the 1950’s – hundreds and hundreds of short stories, articles, columns, you name it – and long has had a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. But in this case he answered the question.
It’s not breaking in that’s hard, he said. Anyone can break in. The hard part is staying in, year after year, even decade after decade. That’s the part that breaks talented spirits.
A lot of days, work as a plumber sounds pretty good. People always need plumbers.
I’ve been doing this freelance writing thing for six years now, since January 2002. It’s been a long, strange road – a long story of insane clients, late night writing sessions, rented-car road trips and youthful idealism smashed into fine paste. And I’m here to tell you, Harlan was right: it’s not starting out that’s tough, it’s keeping going. When you don’t want to anymore. When you’re sick of the whole thing. When you despair of ever seeing yourself in print again. When you’re trying to decide between rent and food. When a magazine tries to shortchange you or a client decides to leave the country for a month during the holidays, leaving behind an unpaid four-digit bill.
Every year since I started, I’ve had to struggle a bit less and less. And it is all worth it, though often I can only see that when the sun comes back up after a bad day. The people you meet. The experiences you have. The ways that your life is enriched, in ways you never imagined possible in the old days. But no matter how many years go by, it’s still yesterday; logically you know that you’ll get paid on that bill, that business will pick up again, that things work in patterns that you’ve gradually learned over time. But no matter how successful you get at doing this, the days of beans and rice always seem like just yesterday.
That client who left the country, leaving a four-digit bill? That happened to us this Christmas, in the midst of my move to California. A good client, too; a long relationship that I was dreading sending to collection. Poor Kristi’s been listening to me rant and neurose over it for the last four weeks, in addition to my usual fretting over finding the next solid client contract.
Hon, she tells me, it’s going to happen. It always happens in the second half of the month, you neurose over not having enough hours early, then after the 15th things get crazy. It’s going to be FINE, babe.
Meanwhile, I’m contemplating brushing off my tech resume. There’s always tech: plumbing for the 21st century.
She tells me that she has faith in me – more faith, probably, than I have in myself.
But that’s not it. What it is, is that she wasn’t there six years ago. She just sees now and knows that everything’s okay. I’m the one who can’t get his head wrapped around the simple fact that I somehow managed to beat the odds, to stay broken in, to avoid being just another dreamer who spent his life fantasizing about being a writer. Simple truth is, she caught me at a point in my life where I’d taken this as far as I could alone. And now she’s volunteering to help take it the rest of the way. I love her for that.
Yesterday – the 16th – we signed our first big job of the year, with a marketing firm in Sacramento. Nice, big healthy money, and a nice deposit check on its way.
Today I finally got the Runaway Client on the phone (he’d gotten back yesterday) and we cleared the air about his bill. Bizarre circumstances, but that should finally be on its way sometime next week.
And we’re still blanketing Northern California with sales letters.
It’s going to be a great year. I’m glad I have Kristi here to remind me of that when I need it. It takes a very special kind of woman to be married to a writer; I’m glad I found one.