On coming out...as a writer

So I've finally done it. I crept out of the dusty closet that doubles as my office and proclaimed to the world that I, C J Evans, am a writer. I'm prepared for the raised eyebrows of friends at parties when I tell them I've spent the last two weeks not going to the pub because I was working on the latest draft of a novel. I'm ready for their questions about how I do it or why I decided to do it now after all of these years. I've got the answers to their questions about what my book is about and I've got a signed copy ready for them (for a small discount).

For most of my life, I've pretended I was something else. I took job after job and pretended that it was my vocation. I took the bus to work and bought my coffee from the Cafe Nero at Lime Street. I walked into classrooms, lecture halls, offices, each time with a broad smile on my face pretending I really wanted to be there. All the time I was thinking of something else. How I'd write the first line of the next chapter.

Writing isn't easy. I've met a lot of people who like the idea of being a writer, but lack the work ethic to make it happen. I've seen people with far more talent than I'll ever possess who can just throw together the opening paragraphs of a great novel in an instant. But what they lack, is determination. Writing is not merely about 'feeling the muse'. It's about hard graft. It's about sitting at your laptop at three in the morning wondering if your dialogue is realistic enough. It's about having sleepless nights about the syntax and grammar. It's about trudging through pages and pages of text to make sure that your protagonist is consistent. It's damn hard work.

So why become a writer? Why put myself through all of this? Simple, I have to. I don't want to get to eighty years of age and wonder, 'what if'. I write, not because I want to, but because I must.