A Writer's Life

So I have a new temp job this week. I'm working for a publishing house. Nothing glamorous, or even requiring anything more than opposable thumbs and the capacity to work through the searing pain of multiple paper cuts.

I open packages sent in for a competition, make sure the paperwork and entry fee are there, and bundle everything back up to be shipped to the judges.

What is amusing about this job is not the work itself, but my co-worker. She's a very nice woman; she works at this place full-time on contest entries, including many entries for writing competitions. I'm pretty sure that, on my first day, I mentioned that I did some freelance writing. However, that remark must be long forgotten because in the past week I've been regaled by many stories featuring crazy, self-centered, cheap, and eccentric writers.

Understandably, as someone dealing with contest entries, she sees writers from a unique perspective. Anyone who puts pen to paper can enter a writing competition. This is not the perspective of a literary agent or well-known editor, who has only the most promising work cross his or her desk.

So I don' t begrudge her this attitude, and I believe that every single one of her crazy writer stories are true. What irks me and makes me laugh at the same time is the stereotyping of Writers. This is what Writers are like. Writers are all _(fill in the blank)_. It's taken me a lot of time and courage even to think of myself as a writer. I wrote for years before I was finally convinced that the act of writing actually made me a writer. I almost felt like I wasn't a writer because I:

• don't have any significant vices
• enjoy normal sleep patterns
• approach writing in a logical, procedural manner
• can also hold down a full-time "real" job.

I suppose, as a writer, I should be trying to disabuse her of the stereotypes. Break down the barriers and help her see writers as individuals. But why? Let's be honest, she's probably right about the majority of the contest entrants. And hearing about the foibles of other writers only makes me think that much more highly of myself. And as everyone knows, that's my favorite pasttime—next to writing, of course.