BACKPAGES NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, July 26, 2024 wk#30 - EMAIL EDITION
People ask me all the time, "What's it like being a real-life writer?"
“Hey Don. What is it really like being a big-time writer? Do you spend your days at book signings and cocktail parties?”
To which I always reply, “No, it’s not that glorious.”
For instance, Wednesday was the last day we could vote early, so that was the civic duty de-jour.
Now, with me, traveling is all walker or wheelchair so it does take forever to get to the car and then in to vote, and back home.
Then Thursday presented its own set of challenges. My medical situation is a bit hard on my feet, so from time to time I must visit a different doctor to whittle on them. Therefore there was a lot of travel time and appointment time used.
Today was more unexpected even for me.
I do have another enterprise that I work at daily and full-time. That job involves licensure by my state. I am licensed on a personal level and my firm is licensed as well. The license for my business is due to expire next month.
I went to get it renewed today. I started before 10 am.
I saw they had renovated their website since a year ago, and ostensibly to make it easier to use, though it was not that customer-friendly at all. I was given the impression I would have to open a new account in this system so I tried to do that, and it wouldn’t work it said I already had one but it still wouldn’t let me renew.
I tried several times and finally watched their how-to videos as they suggested and there existed no such button as they told me to press. yet I watched it a couple more times. I went ahead and tried to call the number they provided on their website, my right hand is fine but lefty is not presently that great.
since I guessed I would have to take some notes and need my credit card, I decided to try the speaker on my phone somewhere about ten minutes before ten o’clock. I listened to loops of distorted music and attempts to get rid of me until after eleven o’clock, whereupon the tape message changed and invited me to call back when there were fewer other customers. And it disconnected me unceremoniously.
Many people wonder what in the world I do all day.
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH ALL YOU REAL-LIFE WRITERS WHO THINK YOU’RE ALL THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS?
Well, here’ the deal.
I was born young and gifted.
I went to a snooty private school.
My family was able to afford for me to get some pretty good grades, even though my two English teachers thought I was a waste of oxygen.
When I graduated I could not diagram sentences, or do simple algebraic equations, I could not even spell the word JOB, even though I could spell similar words like BMW and JBL.
I was immediately accepted into a snooty university and tackled a grueling leisure arts curriculum, with a minor in the pharmaceutical arts and self-medication.
Many times the dean of students tried to make me give up.
I cannot tell you the odds I was up against.
When the dean’s efforts failed to budge me, he took away my dorm room and canceled my student activities card for basketball admission and the dining hall. Most would have thrown in the towel.
I simply went to the much cooler level of existence, living “off campus.”
Which, as it turns out gave me more time to write.
Words of Advice.
And the effect of writing is CUMULATIVE! The more you practice writing, the more you will have written. I you decide to print your writing and carry it in a manila folder, it then becomes EXPERIENCE and looks great on your resume’.
Now I am a prodigious writer because I didn’t give up.
Winston Churchill would be proud.
⭐Publish & Profit: A Beginner's Guide to Making Your First $1000 Writing on Medium (affiliate link.)
Keep those questions coming, and tell your remaining friends about us!
THAT will support the arts!
Thanks,
-don, changing what I can change, laughing at what I can’t.