Life of an aspiring or a published (doesn’t matter in which category you fall) author is tough. You may say that life of everyone in creative field is tough but maybe, after reading this article, your respect for the people who fall in this rare category may rise.
Let me categorize the struggles that we face everyday. Hold tight as you are about to take deep dive in someone’s ‘not-so-personal’ life.
It takes years to produce one book.
It takes patience to write a book and you maybe ready to have that patience-ful walk but your near and dears are not. Your best-est friend, who wants to see you taste success in life, will ask you every week about the progress you made in your novel and you must be having the same response. “One week more and I’ll be done.” That last one week frustrates the shit out of you. Nothing will change in your surrounding; that same laptop, that same word count, that same rough plot, that same question will keep you poking every now and then that when, WHEN-THE-FUCK are you going to complete the book?
‘Author at work’ – No one understands this phrase.
A dancer practices his steps, you can see him dancing. A singer works on his vocal, you can hear him singing. A painter works with brush, you can see him painting. BUT, you’ll never see an author working on his manuscript. Why? Because it is all in his mind and unfortunately, you just can’t see inside his enormous, dangerous, creative mind.
This is the main reason, your parents, your near and dear ones never respect your work. For an author, research work involves reading books, surfing internet, watching sitcoms/movies etc. and all these things comes under the ‘Leisure activities’ for a normal mind. So technically, according to others, you are just doing time-pass.
Movies misguide.
Well the biggest problem is the portrayal of authors in movies. We don’t close doors for months and keep writing shit on papers and fly that paper in air just to release our frustration, as they portray us in movies. On the contrary, most of us, don’t even sit in front of laptop till we have something to write. Yes we feel frustrated for more than half the time but that frustration remains in our head only.
We all have split personality disorder.
Yes, it’s true. If you don’t believe me just sit with a frustrated author who is facing writer’s block or have to meet some kind of deadline. After that, sit with the same guy, just after he has completed his book. You’ll get to know the difference.
This list can go on and on but at this moment, I can only think of these problems. Did I skip anything? Please let me know in comments.
Happy Writing!
Sandeep Sharma 