We creatives have perfect lives. We get up in the morning and make ourselves a cup of French roast coffee, then sit down in our underwear and blissfully pound out 5,000 golden words in our next masterpiece. By that time it’s just past lunch so that we can get together with our other glamorous friends to plot and discuss our last six-figure royalty check. Finally, dinner rolls around and we order something fabulous to go with the expensive bottle of chardonnay we’ve been chilling.
You know that’s bullshit, right?
No kittens, I’m afraid it isn’t like that at all. Most people in any creative field will tell you that this life isn’t for the faint of heart. You’ll likely never be super-famous. You’ll likely never be completely financially stable. Most of us have day jobs and obligations and soccer practices just like everyone else. To prove it to you, I’ve compiled a little glimpse into a day with Lexx.
7:30am: My alarm goes off for the final time after my husband Tally has attempted to beat it to death. I roll out of bed and into the shower. Mind you, this is the shower that’s just enough off balance that the water rolls to the lowest point and under the shower door to soak the floor of my bathroom.
8:30am: I clock in at my dayjob as the deputy clerk of court in my small county in South Carolina. Almost as soon as I walk in, I am inundated with court-related questions: What time is court? I forgot to pay this traffic ticket from two years ago and now they want to suspend my license. How much is my fine? I got served with a paper that I’m going to be coy and mysterious about so that you have to guess how to help me. Oh and can you catalog these 200 crime scene photos that are increasingly gruesome?
5:00pm: I get home finally. Unless I have some other stuff planned (writers’ group “shenanigans” is on Thursdays, friends’ book signings, book club on Wednesdays, D&D on Mondays, etc.), I try to sit down and decompress a little. I read books that I’m reviewing, read for pleasure, play with my dog, make TikTok videos, or even nap.
6:00pm: The dear husband gets home and we cook dinner, do some laundry, clean up a bit, and finally manage to sit down and eat something.
7:00pm- 12:00am: I write, or try to write. That is not to say that I don’t get distracted. I have some shows on TV that I watch faithfully, but I try to get some words down (usually about 1000) and take care of marketing stuff (social media, organizing events, writing blog posts– guess where I’m writing this).
When my day is done, I often drift off to sleep thinking about all the writing projects that I didn’t finish. Or feeling guilty that I didn’t write at all. Or feeling guilty that I didn’t get those TikTok videos filmed. Or that I didn’t get to take my dog out to play fetch.
The point of all this is: don’t go into writing or any other artistic field thinking that it’s going to be an easy way to make money. Trust me, it isn’t. The dayjob is what pays my bills. I write because I love it. I write because I need to get the words out. I write because I need to escape. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s what I was born to do.