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- Reflections - |
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 By Eric Mayer,Co-author with Mary Reed of ONE FOR SORROW, the first novel in a series about John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian. The novel was released in October l999 by Poisoned Pen Press , and has received rave reviews Read the interview with Charlotte Austin When most people think about the writing life, they picture famous novelists in the news, chatting with Oprah, signing six-figure movie deals, mingling with the rich and powerful. They don’t think about t a good friend of mine who got up at 5:30 every morning for seven years, to write before work while his family was still asleep. Every agent and publisher he approached told him there was no longer a market for coming of age novels. But his story is the more usual one. In a world where very few writers - of fiction at least - can earn a living, the writing life is necessarily a strange one. As writers we live in the cramped corners of our own lives, endlessly trying to make time for our real work amidst the crush of work we must do to survive and to support our families. We have no clear career path. Editors don't care about what college we attended. We can't be licensed for publication by passing an exam. We'll never be promoted for years of loyal service. As difficult as it is to achieve any success, the monetary rewards of fiction writing are uncertain. We have gambled our lives on a lottery where the winning numbers probably won't pay a living wage. Toward the end of my employment for a large legal publisher, when the harsh winds of corporate restructuring were blowing, I kept tacked to my bulletin board examples of articles I'd recently written and sold in my spare time. This reminded me of what my life was really about, and that it was, in fact, about something worthwhile, regardless of what my downsizing-minded superiors had to say. One day a curious co-worker inquired whether I got paid a lot for articles. When I told him I was paid very little, he was puzzled. "But if you don't get paid much, why waste your time?" The person who asks that question of a writer is someone who could never understand the answer - a writer writes because that is what he or she feels is important. Very often, the reasons for that feeling are beyond the grasp even of the writer. For most of us the writing life is rewarding but uncomfortable. Never more uncomfortable than when we are confronted with the inevitable question: "So what do you do?" An easy question for most, I suppose, but I always find myself pausing, wondering how I should answer. By describing what I do for a living, or what I do to live? Note: That novel my friend Mitch Waldman wrote before work, A Face in the Moon, should be available from iuniverse before the end of February. |
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