Week 4 update: I’m pretty much over the illness, or whatever it was. Still got the dry cough, but it’s slowly clearing up. As for the writing, I’m easing myself back into the groove. I did not write a book or even advance the two drafts I started with this month, but I’ve successfully re-established the weekly blogging habit, and I’m still game-free. Plus I’ve got an assignment coming in next week, so I’ll either have a good payday in February or so-so paydays in February and March. Either way there’s money coming in and I’m always good with that.
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Years ago I was having lunch with a friend (of the toxic variety, but it took me years to discover that) and we were discussing jobs, employment and the difficulty would-be writers had in securing either, writing-related or not. I think we were both employed at that time; I’m pretty sure we split the check. I’ve always been a cheap bitch.
And she was a complainer. Nothing ever went right in her life. Every conversation had to be about her and how miserable she was. There was no one-upping her in misfortune, ever. If you had a broken arm—“Oh, I broke both my legs once. The ambulance crashed on the way to the hospital. The doctor forgot to give me anesthesia. The recovery room was full so they left me in the hallway where a guy with the plague sneezed on me.” And so on, for hours at a stretch. Like I said, toxic.
Whatever job she had during this particular visit, she hated it, as usual. The work was pointless, the boss was Darth Vader, the pay sucked but every other job in the world paid even less so there’s nothing you can do about it so why even bother, you’re never going to earn a living doing anything so—
Having finally reached my limit, I looked her in the eye and broke into her monologuing with, “How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”
She went silent. Didn’t answer. Then—“There just aren’t any good jobs around and—”
“How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”
“Yeahbutwhineexcusepoormeit’snotmyfaultI’mnottoblameexcuseexcusethewholeworld’swrongbutmeI’mthevictimhere—”
“How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”
“(more of the same, only louder and more forceful).”
And so forth. I must have asked her that question at least five times. She never gave me an answer. I finally gave her what she wanted and stopped, and she went on with her narcissistic whining as if I’d never spoken. I’m sure, in her mind, I hadn’t said anything worth paying attention to anyway.
It was another several years before I finally gathered my self-respect and just flat-out ghosted her. It wasn’t easy because we were part of the same writers’ group and we had decent friends in common. I don’t think she was even aware I’d stopped talking to her. She had plenty of other victims she could spew her toxic waste on. As far as I know, she never changed. She was content to wallow in her misery pit, as long as she had somebody else down in there with her she could stand on. I’ll bet in her version she dumped me because I was a dreary, pathetic loser who always complained and never did anything to fix my own problems while trying to tell her how at fault she was. Narcissists—and bullies—have projection down to an art form.
$$$$
She may have had a point; it just took her around fifteen years to be proven right. I started this challenge a week before New Year’s. Here it is a month later and I’ve done exactly squat. Technically, I started this a year ago. Things were going my way financially and I was on the verge of starting a series while looking into ways of earning side money. Then the whole year went to shit. Before that I started work on the series, hit a writer’s block and blew off my dwindling lifespan playing computer Solitaire. Before that I got thrown off-stride by Covid and its subsequent lockdowns. Before that it was having my last full-time job go overseas and the realization I’d aged out of what was left of the job market. Having experience didn’t make me valuable; it just made me expensive. Jobs I’d worked years to acquire skills for no longer existed, or were going to diversity hires because they’d accept less than a living wage, and women under 25 have lower insurance rates than us battle-axes over 50, and being straight and white was just soooo ’90s.
And it’s all just excuses. There was a point where I was making good side money writing erotic romances. I was just beginning to build momentum…except I stopped. Went on a block for a year and didn’t write. That one’s on me. I landed an at-home editing job for that publisher, though, so I wasn’t destitute. That and savings got me through until I got old enough to claim Social Security. I could have been writing this whole time, maybe have savings in the bank now. Why didn’t I? Maybe I should have asked a therapist.
It all comes down to that one question: How much do you make if you don’t work at all? These January blogs should have answered that for you. They sure as shootin’ did for me. February will be devoted to answering my original question: Can I write a book/draft in a month? I should be able to because this is a leap year. Make that extra day count! See you next week.
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