Something Worth Remembering

[Dana King]

(Cross posted on One Bite at a Time.)
Writers have been known to remark on what hard work it is to finish a book. Successful writers sometimes comment on the difficulties of cranking out a book a year. In the press kit for her now book, A Darker Domain, no less an authority than Val McDermid lays it out:

People sometimes remark that I must work hard to produce a book a year. They look offended when I laugh. Then I explain. And they get it.

Both my grandfathers were miners. The one who only had daughters rejoiced that no child of his was going to have to spend a working life underground. Deep underground in the heat and the stink and the filth and the danger, they knew what hard work was, my grandfathers.

The next time any of us, myself included, feels the need to complain about a writer’s plight, we should stop, get on our knees, and thank whatever higher power we choose that we have the privilege, and the leisure, to be able to write.

[Dana King]

True, miners are proud people who are proud of what they do. And not one of them grew hoping for a "career" in the mines. A college education wasn't likely an option for many of them. They grew up in amine town, their people don't know much else but mining, and that's where they wound up. I grew up with and around quite a few people who had little or no opportunity for higher education; they took the jobs they could get. If they happened to grow up in Appalachia, or certain parts of northeastern Pennsylvania, their tickets to the mines may have been punched when they were small children.

[I. J. Parker]

From what I've seen, miners are proud people and proud of what they do. Not everyone can do this work. It also does not take the preparation, education, or incomeless years to land a white-collar job (or write a book). It strikes me that there are always other options for the man or woman who wants a different life, but not everyone wants to stay in school or become a penniless student for another 10 to 15 years.

[Dana King]

I agree, Ingrid, there are other pressures, but they don't compare to going into the mine (or other, similar backbreaking work) every day knowing you have no viable options until you either retire or can't physically do it any more. I don't know of any writers who have NO other options, though they may be less palatable. I can think of few options less palatable than mining.

[I. J. Parker]

This is quite true for me. I have put away one career and found another, and I'm incredibly grateful I did. Furthermore, this is something I'm likely to be enjoying for the rest of my life.

But there are other considerations here, like being able to make a living wage with only one book per year. Too many writers crank out mediocre books several times a year because they have to. Other writers turn out the same thing over and over again because the publisher expects it. At that point, the writer has to sacrifice quality and the freedom to move to other challenges.