A way with words (also, fish and bugs)
My friend and colleague Chuck has a way with words. Look, this is his way with words:
I’m here to bring the news. Seriously. It’s a newspaper wrapped around a fish, and in the fish is a bunch of stinging insects, and you open the newspaper up, and you’re like, “Oh, goddamn, this fish stinks,” and then the fish’s mouth opens, and all these stinging insects fly or crawl out, and next thing you know they’re on your hand, and they’re stinging the shit out of you, and then you you don’t even smell the fish anymore, because you’re like, “No! Holy shit! SNAARGH! Why were there angry insects inside the fish! Who did this to me?”
And then you realize. I did it. I did it to you.
What is this about?
Well, it’s about the job of writing and how us writers don’t get no respect. And that’s partly because of the chancers and the wannabes.
But writer gets some kind of namby-pamby wishy-washy artist-flavored miasma floating around it, like it’s a social identifier similar to “hippie” or “cat-lover.” Listen, I’m not saying the only qualifier for “writer” is, “I get paid to do it.” Except, it is. See what I just did there? Hah! Suckers. Seriously, you at least have to have aspirations to do this professionally, aspirations that you back up with exploration of the craft. Then, feel free to call yourself an “amateur writer,” or an “out-of-work writer,” or an “aspiring writer.” Fine. Okay. Yay for you. But don’t insult me and all the other writers who have scraped their knuckles raw climbing to our (admittedly meager) heights. Stop watering down our heady brew! Writers work really hard to be writers. Stop pretending you worked as hard.
Read the rest of his rant: A Fish Full of Stinging Insects Bites You In the Ass Arse. You owe it to me and him (but do bear in mind Chuck, along with having a good eye — he took the pic of the spider — also has a way with swear words.).
He’s completely right. I’ve completely been there.
See, thing is, the economic downturn and various family stuff means that I may have to stop freelancing and go work in an office somewhere (even the thought of which kills me — I am doing my dream job, and I have no other aspirations), and when Mrs Wood told someone recently that this might happen, this other’s response was “He’ll be getting a proper job then,” to which her (instant and correct, and I love her for it) response was “He’s got a proper job.”
I have a proper job. I am not a hobbyist. I am a professional. I worked out last week that my work has been in books that have sold a total of something like 100,000 units in the last five years. I have had my name in at least one nationally recognised magazine. I edit a magazine with a long history and a fine reputation.
I have a proper job. It’s your problem if you can’t accept that.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Thanks for the linkback, sir.
And amen to this sentiment. It is a proper job, indeed.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am
I can’t even think about the prospect of having to work in an office again instead of freelancing. Listening to friends, it seems even more horrific now than it was when I got out.
Good luck Mr Wood. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that for any of us.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Right. Writing isn’t really an easy path, and it has its own potholes and pitfalls, but it has potholes and pitfalls with which I’ve grown quite comfortable. Traveling back to a cubicle farm could be soul-killing.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
You TELL it, Wood!
July 17th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Well of course free-lance writing is a proper job! And you’ve done great at it. But maybe your niche is in an area which is mainly disposable income spending. It’s not hardly your fault the economy is weak.
Maybe a different niche?
July 17th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
That’s what I like to hear — proper job, indeed.
Remember that getting some other gig can still be a temporary state of affairs. I am always 30 days away from being a barista again, but I know it’ll help me write to get out of the house and be around people again. (I can’t leave the house and write in a shop somewhere because every jaunt outside seems to cost money, somehow, and lately it’s all about making money versus spending money, isn’t it?)
Can I say, though, that I love the notion of “proper,” which we just don’t have over here. It’s one of my favorite aspects of British language. I heard “proper job” and I thought, “a real job” in the sense of “a necktie and a slog,” not as a commentary against the life of a freelancer. I read irony in that, which it sounds like the speaker didn’t intend. Different countries and all that.
Anyway, my point is this: I forbid you to regard addition of other work to freelancing as failure. It is, rather, the nature of freelancing to have to react to the market. Certainly, though, I recommend looking for other niches and farming out for other work. I keep a toe in paper gaming because I love it and I want to impress some people there in a manner I haven’t been able to do yet, but that’s not where my checks come from lately. The UK has a great game culture and video-game development scene brewing — look for entryways there.