My Job Is Harder Than Yours, He Says

Stephanie, once again, wrote an awesome blog that I have to follow.  How To Annoy A Writer is all about the things that people should NEVER say to a writer- unless you wanna get your head bashed in by the nearest reading lamp.

I know I don't get paid for doing what I do right now.  I'm a part-time sales associate for my paying job, and it's the least creative thing a person can do for a living (unless you count the many ways we create to catch a thief).  But when I'm at home, my laptop is on, I have some beverage beside me, and I'm either researching, reading blogs, writing a blog, or working on my novel.  I do take breaks, of course.  I move my legs around, go pet the rabbits, brush my hair.  For the most part, though, I'm sitting with my laptop in front of me, tapping away at whatever I'm working on.

Most days my boyfriend comes home, and he is absolutely exhausted and in a bad mood because he didn't make any sales at work.  He's a telemarketer.  For those of you that hate telemarketers (like me), let me defend him for just a moment.  He only calls people that are interested in their home sales business and they actually request more information, so he's not cold-calling or annoying people that have no interest.  Anyhow, he's a telemarketer.  He spends his day on the phone, calling people that want to make an extra income from home, and he tells them how to do it.  His days are short (he works six hours), he sits in front of a computer (playing pool on Yahoo!), and he talks to co-workers (while smoking a cigarette every five minutes outside the office).  I don't bash on him about what he does for a living, though.  He makes his money, and I support that.  He, however, just doesn't get why I happen to be exhausted right along with him.

"What'd you do today?" he'll ask.  Right there, I can tell he is mocking me.  Do not mock me. 

"Well, I cleaned our room, washed your dirty underwear, did the dishes, cleaned the living room and bathroom, picked up dinner, and made dinner.  Oh yeah, and I wrote 50 pages on my novel and worked on three different query letters between doing all those things."

The query letters alone give me headaches that sometimes last until late into the night.  Yesterday I had one from about noon til eight.  And I didn't work on the novel at all.  That was just query letters for different agents.

If I could get paid for doing what I do, I would.  As a matter of fact, I'm TRYING to get paid.  I'm pursuing a dream I've had for a very long time, and I'll bet half the country can't even say they're doing that.  It takes a lot of hard work, not just a few nights of typing some words.  Some days I don't even have the inspiration in me to work on the new book because I'm so tired.  I haven't worked on the new one for three days, in fact, because I'm trying to find another part-time job to actually pay bills, and despite being a large city, Phoenix has none.

Stress, stress, stress...and he says his job is harder.  Please, let's trade for a week, and we'll see if you can get anything accomplished in writing, and still have dinner ready when I come home.

In fact, I'd like to see you just do all the housework I do, work your six hour shift, then come home and make dinner.  I'd even consider that a hard days work.  But do not mock me when I say I'm exhausted.

Because I am a writer.  My job is to think of creative ways to kill someone and hide the evidence.