Never.
You will never JUST have a nine-to-five job, if you ever have one at all.
You’ll never be content making money just doing one thing, just working for one person.
You won’t ever sit back, look at your life and think, “Yeah, this is fine. I can’t do any better than this.”
Never.
Why? Because you are a writer.
You have been blessed, and/or cursed, with a mind that never sleeps. And dreams that never cease. You have ambitions, even if you aren’t naturally an ambitious person.
You float around the real world with fake stories in your head. You exist in a dimension that will not adapt to your kind — so you must, somehow, mostly adapt to the preset parameters of this realm you never asked to be born into.
There are rules, and you’re expected to follow them — unless one day a miracle strikes your life and you write something so brilliant that these rules no longer apply to you.
You are surrounded by people who do not understand you, and whom you do your best to understand — but often struggle, even though you write about [fake] people “for a living.”
You’re an offspring, a sibling, a friend, maybe a partner or a spouse, a dog parent, a parent to a much tinier and more vocal version of yourself. But you are also a writer, which means you have to be all of these things at once and more, and also must find the headspace and energy to tell stories in your head.
Some of them even make it onto paper. Or a more modern version of it — they call it a “Google Doc.”
You will never have a real bedtime. The sun is not your alarm clock. Your creativity determines when you fall and when you rise, if you’re lucky enough to call what you do horizontally “resting.”
You’ll rarely, if ever, have a long conversation with a stranger or someone more closely acquainted that does not at some point include phrases like, “What are you writing?” or, “I’ve always wanted to write!”
You may not have chosen this dark and twisted, mixed up, sideways, ever-revolving spiral of a life. But you’ve known for a long time that you’re stuck with it. You can’t NOT make words happen. You’ve tried to run from them. Every time, something drags you back. Passion. Boredom. Maybe you’re not whole without some kind of story to tell or underlying message to get across.
Maybe you just keep trying to fit into the mold they call “normal.” The nine-to-five, single-income-stream, this-is-good-enough-for-now life that doesn’t, has never, and never will belong to you.
You are an idea-driven, schedule-defying, rule-bending human being. You have many titles, you’ve formed many relationships and accomplished many things. But you are not normal. Your life is not normal. It was never supposed to be any such thing.
One day, maybe, you will learn to embrace it.
Until then, you’ll just have to blindly write your way through it all. As all true writers do.
Meg is the creator of Novelty Revisions, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words. She is a staff writer with The Cheat Sheet, a freelance editor and writer, and a 10-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.
Great lede, Love it
Thanks! :)
It’s like you quoted from my autobiography that I haven’t even written. Nice job.
This keeps happening, maybe I’m not actually human, just a general representation of all writers’ whacked-out brains. :P
Normal is boring. Normal is not satisfying and therefore you’ll never be satisfied with normal. Great post!
Very true! Boring is … boring!
Oh my goodness yes. Yes in so many ways.
Thanks for sharing :)
Reblogged this on A Yarny Life and commented:
Oh my gosh. This just… She nails it. Seriously, if you’re looking for writing blogs to follow, Novelty Revisions is a great one.
I wouldn’t want normal either. Nice post.
Thanks for reading! :)
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this thought-provoking post from the Novelty Revisions blog on how your life will never be normal as a writer.
Reblogged this on Claire Plaisted – Indie Author and commented:
Glad I never wanted to be normal…
This is great. People give you weird looks, provide “obviously” the best advice, and remind you how often cliches are present. Don’t be normal. Normal is stressful!
Normal IS stressful! Is that why not writing feels so terrible? IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW…
hahaha!