I’ve always wanted to write and wrote my first story at ten. (It was fantasy and every paragraph started with suddenly.)  Since then, I have set aside part of every day to write, and it has not been easy. Up to this point, I’ve had some limited success.

Now I discover that when you do publish, suddenly you have many other tasks beside the fun one of actually writing the story. I refer, of course, to editing and copy editing. The first edits suggested by my editor were kind of fun and I looked upon them as a free creative writing course. And boy were they helpful. I’d gone through the book about six times and there were still places where I didn’t explain something.

Copy edits are different. You look at every word, every comma, every character. Not fun or glamorous at all.

The other task writers do is talk. I’ve already had my first speaking ‘engagement’. I never mind doing this, though. I can always talk and my first time talking about my book was to a group of librarians. Since I started working in libraries at 16, talking to librarians was not a problem. I joke that I can talk to librarians with my mouth taped shut.

Anyway, learning to be a writer, as opposed to ‘writing’ is definitely a job.