Storytellersunplugged

That’s right. You, too, can make your first million writing novels. It’s easy. It’s not even really work. I mean, all you do is sit around and make things up and write them down. How hard can that be?

And the royalties, oh, the royalties. The fat advance checks, the NY Times bestseller list and the fame.

You might have to wear disguises just to get a moment’s peace at your favorite restaurant.

Well, let me tell you how it’s worked for me . . . I started writing around age 10. I completed my first novel in tenth grade. I got my first article published at 21 (for which I was paid $50, plus another $25 for two photos). Then, I got married. I finished college. I had kids, and worked all sorts of jobs while trying to make ends meet.

It wasn’t until age 33, when publishing a novel seemed like the one mountain I’d never actually climb, that I got a hard, gonad-busting kick from Sharyn McCrumb. She wrote a steel-toed-boot of an article in Writers Digest, in which she demanded that all would-be writers actually “write or shut up.”

I wrote. I wrote some more. I quit a good paying job, and on Cinco de Mayo 1997 opened an espresso business with my wife–in the wayward belief that it would give me more free time to complete my first bestseller. My kids did start school, though, and that allowed me some quiet space in the home, while my wife held down Tuesdays and Thursdays at the shop. I closed the shades, ignored the phone, and wrote a whole lot more until I had a 120,000 word novel completed (published by a division of Random House four years later, under the title Dark to Mortal Eyes).

This year, on Cinco de Mayo, eleven years later to the day, I officially quit my day job. I have eight novels completed, with number nine now under construction. I collected my first royalty check ever only three months ago. I hit a small-time bestseller list around the same time. I have no guarantees after summer of next year, once my tenth novel is turned in, but I’m doing it. I’m making a living as a novelist.

Ah, yes–the road to fame and riches!

I won’t lie. I love this job. It’s the greatest privilege–and a truly humbling thing–to have others pay you for silly little thoughts that begin to germinate in your imagination. Sometimes I’m surprised anyone really cares. Sometimes I can’t believe I have enough courage to chase these thoughts down and drag them to the ground; but then again, it’s my way of hunting for my dinner.

So the next time you come to one of my book-signings, don’t look for the fancy car coming down the lane. No, I’m in the ‘87 Toyota without A/C. Don’t look for the dapper fellow with the pipe, and the turtleneck beneath his tweed jacket. No, I’m like most of you–in jeans, a T-shirt, and wondering if the grays at my temples are beginning to make me look distinguished.

One day, I hope to upgrade the wheels and splurge for a decent jacket, but until then I’ll be typing at my desk, journeying through new adventures, meeting new characters and brushing shoulders with familiar ones, and thanking God for the chance to do something I’ve loved since I was old enough to ride the bus alone to the public library.

Yeah, I’m living the rich life–and if you think otherwise, you’re just counting wrong.