Paper Boats

Dear Writer,

It makes me feel soft sometimes. I’ve had quote-unquote “real” jobs before. I worked the canneries in Alaska. I was a nanny for a while. I ran pyrotechnics at an old West theme park. I provided customer support for a top software company.

All of those things were hard work. Some required physical resources and some were more psychologically draining, but they had real hours and a time clock and I went every day and I was beat by the time I was done.

But writing? Man. Writing is hard. And when people who don’t write hear us say things like that, they can respond with, “Oh, yeah. Sitting there typing at a keyboard with your iced caramel macchiato on one side and a half-eaten blueberry scone on the other. How do you make it through the day?” Even people who love you say that shit, thinking they’re being funny or just gently teasing.

They’re not. They’re jealous.

But they don’t get it. We’re not just typing. We’re creating things that didn’t exist before. We’re putting ourselves on the page to be criticized and torn apart. We set ourselves up for mockery, all the while pulling truth through the ground, through our bodies, hiding pieces of our souls in the words and setting them to sail on rough waters, little paper boats that will probably sink unread.

Writing is the most deeply personal thing I’ve ever done.

That’s why I stopped.

Everything,

L