I’m not going to tell you that you need to be dressed in business clothes, or even business casual when I dress.
I’m not going to yell at you about your research.
Well, maybe I’m actually going to do both, but that’s not my only or even my main point.
What I’m going to say is this: it was always hard for writers to take their work seriously. Part of this, I think, it’s because we write using something everyone else uses: words. And what we do is “make up stuff”.
This hardly seems like a real job. I mean “What do you do for a living?” “I make up stuff” seems like the idea of a job that a 2 year old would have.
For years, before I was ever published, Dan tried to get me to treat my writing like a professional. He’d set up an office for me, even if it was — often — a corner of the kitchen. He’d get me computers, even if they were the ones retired at his work. If I said “I think I need a book on–” He’d tell me to buy it, even if we were at one of our times when buying a paperback meant pancakes for a week. (Or more often rice.)
This wasn’t just because he was being nice — though he’s a very nice man — but because he always told me “You have to treat it as a job and a career.”
Over the years I’ve wavered back and forth on this job and career thing. This house requires us to have a shared office, which wasn’t an issue in the past, but for some reason is an issue in this office. I just did a major rearranging up there and maybe this time it will work.
Here’s the thing, every time I am writing (like now) on the easy chair, not keeping business hours, and generally being lax, I produce less, but more importantly I am more unfocused, so that what I write is not necessarily what I meant to write. And I end up not publishing anything. (Or turning any thing in, when I was trad pub.)
But — you’ll say — you like writing in crayons, on butcher paper, (it’s been done) while wearing a clown suit and bunny slippers. And that’s fine.
I haven’t really at any given time dressed any finer than business very casual.
But we’re beings with bodies.
How and where we treat our work always influences how here’s what I found: when I was first starting to write, I found if I started whenever, and wrote anywhere, I never behaved as though it were my job — not matter how much I told myself it was — and therefore it didn’t work like a job.
Generally I find having a place to write, a computer I don’t use for anything else, and usually a cork board for my ongoing work.
We’re not made of money out here, so of course, I don’t often buy the latest thing and at any rate my way of working is idiosyncratic. Like, I don’t work on Macs. They drive me nuts. And I only rarely write long hand. But I always edit long hand.
But within what I need, I do have a place to work, and I try to keep hours (Well, I need to get back to it) and use the tools I need to get the job done.
If you cringe when saying you are a writer, and you’re trying to make do on nail pairings and wrapping paper? Stop it. Within your limits, give yourself a place to work, and things to work with.
Oh, and research and do the best you can. But also, treat yourself as the professional you want to be.
Trust me, it makes a difference.
Mad Genius Club 
13 responses to “Respect Your Craft”
Thank you. This was the nudge I needed to start taking my creative writing seriously. I was thinking to myself this morning while walking the dog that this new idea I had for a series was great – but I told myself that it is just a “silly hobby” and I would have ended up treating it that way.
This is how my projects do not even get started, let alone finished.
Writing is creative, it is risky, it is free, it’s fun – but its execution does require some balance in the form of structure and discipline. And taking it seriously.
When I come in to work at the day job I wear business casual, even though many other engineers there (JSC) wear jeans, sneakers, and space-related t-shirts. Why? Out of respect for the job. I feel if someone is paying me to do something I should respect that.
When I taught at a community college I was about the only adjunct that came in wearing a blazer and tie. I also addressed my students as Mr. or Ms. and by their last name. Why? To show respect to them. They were paying me to teach them.
When I am writing at home during working hours I have bathed, shaved, brushed my teeth and am in work clothes. (If I get up at 3:00 and can’t get back to sleep I’ll write in my nightclothes, but at 6:00am I go through my shower and get dressed routine.) Why? Because someone is paying me for what I am writing and I feel dressing properly and behaving professionally is the minimum level of respect I owe the words.
Mind those are my rules. I do not impose them on others. If they can do good work in jeans and ratty sneakers, more power to them. All I know is if I show the job respect I do a better job. (Come to think of it, so did my students. It is amazing how much better an 18-year-old who thought he or she was in an extra year of high school performs if they are treated with the dignity owed an adult.)
Gads, two posts in a couple of days showing me my unseriousness in writing. I always write in a rocker recliner typing on the computer in the living room wearing whatever I have on.
Guess I’ll never make the grade. It’s definitely harder than it looks.
Oh… (looks around) did you ever get the story I sent you in April?
As Dorothy says, You Do You. You can be professional in a recliner. It’s the mindset that goes with it. “I am here, I am writing.” Some of us do things differently.
“There are nine and sixty ways
Of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!”
Some people need the external. And a lot of newbies do, because they don’t take it seriously ohterwise.
Yeah, I have no plans on changing where I write. Rocker recliner is it for me.
I do a lot of writing/editing in the recliner. Maybe because I’m getting old and putting my feet up is the best way to be comfortable.
I get a lot of writing done sitting in a rocking chair beside a fire in the fireplace, and my laptop. I think It works for me because I don’t have any games on the laptop, and the Internet connections are a PITA with none of my passwords saved . . .
But most of the times, It’s at the desk, uh, checking my fav sites too often . . .
I bought a laptop to do bills. I stop to check out my bookmarks after I write a bit, or when I have to figure out how I want to do something.
er…. Yes. I just have been first in Wedding limbo then in “What is this bug, and why won’t it leave me.”
BUT to that: You don’t have to have a desk, etc. I just find it helps for a lot of people.
No worries, no hurries. I’d just like to see what you think about it when you have time. It’s harder for me to type at a desk. Had to type for work, but we were required to stand, so I’m not used to it.
i wear a polo shirt to drive uber, and refer to them as my ‘work shirts’.