The Writer's Life (Tara Taylor Quinn)

I had someone ask me recently if any writers were normal. Well, my first response was to want to know who defines normal. Normal for you? Normal for me? Normal for my writer friends? Normal for my mother and my aunt who grew up in a different time than I did, but have seen every single bit of the world's evolution that I've seen, plus some?

And my second response was, how could we be? If normal is to be defined by stereotype, by majority, then, no we probably aren't normal. Just look at the math. In the romance industry there are somewhere between 300-600 full time fully supporting authors in the world. Based on statistics that are a few years old, I'd say there are about 2500 people currently publishing book length romance fiction. And romance fiction makes up nearly 50% of all mass market paperback fiction so that means that there are probably around 5000 people around the globe who are currently publishing book length fiction. 5000 out of - how many people are there in the world? If the majority sets the norm - we don't have a chance!

My third response was - why would we want to be? I've been different my whole life. Because I dare to look at the world through my eyes, through my heart, and not through the eyes and hearts of those around me. I dare to be honest with myself about what I think and feel, rather than feeling like I have to conform to what I'm told to think and feel. Why would I want to be like everyone else? Everyone else has their own jobs to do here, I have mine. If I'm you, I'm not me. If I'm doing your job, my job isn't getting done. And if I think the thoughts and do the things that everyone else is doing, I'm not living my life. I'm living everyone else's life. A pre-determined stereotype that was determined by...who? The trick is to find someone who loves you because you're not 'normal', who finds your differences a treasure.

Being a writer is hard. And not just because we must spend so much time isolated and alone. People tend to look at us as the lucky ones, getting to sit at home every day when others go off to work, maybe laying around in our p.j's or some other comfie clothes, watching television, eating what we want when we want (mostly chocolate seems to the stereotype, as though we don't gain weight or have health issues like everyone else), chatting on the phone, or meeting friends for lunch. Or they see us traveling the globe, visiting exotic locations for research, or making appearances. Being wined and dined. And there might actually be a moment or two like these. (Certainly we seem to have an addiction to chocolate!) But, like the pain of childbirth, those moments fade almost into oblivion in the face of the real writer's life.

I currently have three editors. And yesterday, heard from all three of them. They all three need work from me by the end of this week. That's three days. And if each of them only needed one day's work, I could actually hope to please them. To come through. Unfortunately, they each require weeks of my time. Two of the three admitted that this pressured situation is not my fault. One was a book moved up in the schedule to fit a themed month during Harlequin's 60th anniversary celebration in '09. Another was due to a date error by the production department - they gave the wrong date for when the book was scheduled to be at the printer. And the third - well that one had already been informed, prior to contract, that the dates first set forth would be an impossibility. I guess she just forgot.

And when I'm not in situations quite so pressured, I still have to work at least 8 hours a day. Only I don't get to leave work behind and go home at the end of the day. When I'm not working...I'm working. Because, in truth, a writer is never not working. At least this writer isn't. My work is largely in my head. In my thoughts. And they don't shut up. Many times not even enough to let me get a good night's sleep. The people are always there, clamoring for their say, to tell me what I need to write, what needs to be heard. They're always borrowing my eyes, my ears, to view the world. Stories don't swarm on schedule. They swarm constantly. They missed the memo on normal. And the one on vacations and time off and peace and quiet. No matter where I am, or what I am doing, the stories present themselves. And I'm driven to get them down. To get them out. To find peace? Ha! No. To make room for more stories.

Real life, non working experiences - become stories. Yesterday my honey and I were having lunch with my mom who's been staying with us (she left today and I already miss her, but we get her here at our house for the entire Thanksgiving holiday, yeah!!!) and she said that in every single book of mine, she recognizes things. Bits and pieces of real life. She was talking about a book I wrote in which characters were on a picnic. She said she recognized the meadow they were in. And when they delved into the picnic basket, she knew, ahead of time, everything that was going to come out! I made no conscious choices for that picnic. I was just following orders from the particular story running through my brain. A brain that, apparently, was working at some point when I was having a picnic with my mother.

Today my mind is more frantic than many days. So I must run and do it's bidding. Fed-Ex closes at seven this evening and I have to have a print out there before that happens. And a book done by Friday. And a synopsis done by then, too.

But lest you think a writer's life isn't filled with wonderful things, I leave you with a moment of my pure birthday joy this past week:

And while I worked all day on my birthday, I will also share with you that my dear sweet Tim made the celebration phenomenal - it lasted several days (stealing moments out of real life) and culminated with a birthday cake that he made and decorated himself.

My life might not be normal - but I wouldn't trade it for anything.