The “Glamorous” Life of a Writer

As a kid, I “knew” what it would be like to be a writer.

It would involve the following:

• A corduroy jacket (WITH elbow patches…the elbow patches are important.)
• A “study” with built-in corner shelves
• Enough well-worn classics (first editions) to line said shelves
• A window seat over looking an ivy-league looking courtyard
• A huge dark oak desk, buried under crumpled up rough drafts
• A wire wastebasket, also overflowing with rough drafts
• Maybe a pipe (I like the smell of cherry tobacco, but I don’t like smoking. Maybe mine would be a bubble pipe.)
• A typewriter. Definitely a typewriter (with a very distinct clicking sound and a crisp ding! at the end of each line)
• An assistant in a flowered dress who brews hot tea, probably with sugar cubes
• Several notebooks full of inspirational scribbles

This is what being a writer actually looks like:

• Working a 9 to 5 day job (well, a 7-3 day job…)
• Red and white heart-print Old Navy Pajamas
• A bedroom with a queen-sized bed
• Disheveled stacks of magazines and books tucked in various crevices and containers next to bed
• A TV with DVR just a few feet away (hmmm, that’s not tempting when I have writer’s block)
• A laptop with a smeary screen and sticky right-arrow key
• A living room, dining room, kitchen and 1.5 baths that do not clean themselves while I write. Ditto on the laundry that doesn’t carry itself down to the laundry room or fold itself afterward.
• A super-large sweet tea
• A nine-month old assistant who drools on the screen and tries to do full body rolls on the keyboard as I type
• Several notebooks of inspirational scribbles