A quote of Milton Berle is- “My doctor told me that jogging could add years to my life. I think he was right. I feel ten years older already.”
I’ve started to run on a treadmill again, and let me tell you… Taking my mind off of the discomfort gives me plenty of time to think. Mostly, I’m thinking about not looking at the TVs, because if it isn’t politics it’s house demolitions or food.
I thought about writing, why I write and about writing not as a hobby, but as a paying profession. It was spurred on by something on Twitter that caught my attention. I know, right? How to make enemies and seem especially shallow in a limited amount of characters.
The subject of the tweet, which drew me to a longer article, was the slow, steady demise of the printed word, the jobs that print media is shedding and the reasons why all of that is happening. An insane number of writing jobs - employment where real people made an honest living, have vanished in the last twenty years.
So, why would someone get into the business of writing for pay?
First, and most importantly, is that most writers think they have something significant to say. Not necessarily important - a sportswriter banging on a laptop describing the madcap experiences of, say, the Rochester Red Wings isn’t going to change the world. Maybe they won’t even change the front office’s opinion about a player, or a managerial move.
But, there was once a high school senior who played goalie. A professional sportswriter dedicated a couple of paragraphs to a hockey game the young player appeared in, mentioned him by name, and allowed as how he’d been the difference. I still have that clipping, lovingly (if haphazardly) glued in a scrapbook by my late father. That wasn’t important writing. The man made a living at it.
Which brings me to the second reason. Making a living doing something we love. I write about strong women because I was raised by one, have two daughters and a daughter-in-law who rock, and am married to someone who defines the genre. I’ve known dozens of strong women in my former professional life. Several of them have helped launch, and then encouraged, my own efforts at making a living writing.
It doesn’t pay very well, at least in money. I wonder sometimes if someone offered me a lot of money to write about something else exclusively, if I would take it. I suppose I have my price. We have, after all, lives to lead and bills to pay. And, there certainly are people who will write just about anything, so long as there is a paycheck in it. Hat’s off to them. Follow your own heart, your own dreams.
Me? I love writing about characters who make me smile, make me laugh, make me cry. Make me blush. There is a scene in The Heart of the Matter where the strong women have brought about justice, at great peril to themselves. They are together - ordinary people of extraordinary strength and courage.
I loved writing that scene. I hope you read it. I hope those women make you feel what I felt writing it. And, maybe you’ll look around and see they are not all that uncommon in real life.
And you’ll want to read some more.