Writers Write

So, I have decided to be a writer. This is a rather new decision really. I know what you may be thinking: “but Rob, you have a novel due out next month, and you have dozens of short stories out already. What do you mean that you have decided to be a writer?” Well, I have come to a realization that there is a fanciful fiction that persists amongst writers, an ideal of grandiose pomposity. People that have the idea of being a writer view the world in shades of pink and yellow, even us horror writers. We see a world where every action and movement in the stars is a matrix of words on a page waiting for a writer to give life to it. We regurgitate clichés about writing until we begin to believe our own bullshit. But I have decided to shed the cloak of fancy. I have decided to move beyond the bright lights of the runway and get behind the curtain to become a real writer. A writer writes. Does it matter what the writer writes? Does it even matter if the writer gets credit for what they write? I don’t think so, not anymore.

I have come to a realization that being a writer is a job and a job I would enjoy doing more than any other. Supporting my family with words on paper or a screen is the only real thing that matters. So I have taken on other projects. I started the year as a horror writer with a handful of publications under my belt and a few dollars in my pocket for my efforts. Back in February I accepted a position as an editor for Grey Wolfe Publishing, a wonderful company that has brought me on and handed me a few projects, children’s books of all things, to edit and work with the author to fine tune into very solid manuscripts. There will be more about these wonderful books soon. Then, based on the suggestion of a friend, I started blog writing in the SEO sense. I am still learning the ropes with the hows and whys of the art of SEO writing, but it is writing and therefore I enjoy it. I have also accepted a ghost writing job for a novel. Having my name on the cover just didn’t seem as important as the cash flow that it would supply.

So have I sold my writers soul? Perhaps. But I think I have just evolved. I am no longer the hipster kid writing in the corner of the noisy coffee shop. I am a man that writes after his daughter goes to bed. I no longer write with the notion that a story is inside demanding to be free. I write with the hope that food gets put on the table. I think this makes me a better writer too. In the past, I wrote a few stories that I couldn’t even stomach with the belief that anybody that didn’t like the words I put down, well then they just weren’t on my level. It never occurred to me that I didn’t like them and obviously wasn’t on my own level as a reader. Now I write to be enjoyed. This is not to say that I lost my edge. On the contrary, I think now my edge is sharpened to make the stories crisp and lively, and if something doesn’t work, I cut it and rework it.

In many ways, I think of the James Braddock story. James was a fighter that fought for glory and to be the best, yet he never was the best. Then the depression hit, and he worked any job he could find to supply food for his children. Out of the blue, he was offered a fight against the relentless Max Baer. Braddock fought like a demon that night. He was no longer fighting for glory. He was fighting for his meals, for his children, for his very survival. And he won the heavyweight championship. The hunger and desire to make a living from my writing has moved me in the same way. I am ready for my title shot. I am ready to make my living!

With that said, if you have any SEO work you want done, books you want ghost written, or just a good horror book to read, shoot me a message. 😉