A Moment of Jen

A Moment of Jen

THE NEXT BEST THING — In Stores July 3rd!

Wednesday, January 16, 2002
posted by Jen at 1/16/2002 07:55:00 PM

You know what the worst part of being a stay-at-home writer is? People assuming that you have no job at all.

Picture this: my husband and I are at a family gathering. One of his cousins approaches. "So when are you going to write something new?" he demands.

I explain that I am hard at work on my second book (which is true, by the way), and that it's going to be published in the spring of 2003 (also true. May, we think).

"Yeah," says the unsatisfied cousin, "but when are you going to write something I can read???"

I take a deep calming breath and explain that because I'm on leave from my day job as a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, it might be a while before I write something he can read.

"On leave?" he repeats. "You know, when you're on leave from a job, you're on leave from a paycheck!"

Right. Thanks. Because I never would have figured that out on my own.

"Okay, you got me," I say. "I'm actually lying on the couch all day, eating bon bons, polishing my ring and watching "The Price is Right."" (Not true. I have actually not succumbed to the lure of daytime programming, although Bob Barker is mightily tempting).

And the weird thing is, he isn't the only one to assume that even though I say I'm writing, I'm actually just playing some extended version of hooky, sitting on my laurels, getting pedicures and taking in matinees.

Take my Nanna. I told her the "if you're on leave from a job, you're on leave from a paycheck" story, hoping, for some unknown reason, that she'd rise to my defense and say, "Well, of course you're working!" Instead, she sighed and said, "Well, you know, a year is a long time to be on leave from a job." Argh!

I think the trouble is that, for most people, writing really doesn't look like work. You sit there. You think about things. You consult other books. You type. It's all very internal, and very quiet, and sometimes it involves spending an hour or two reading other people's stuff, and occasionally it involves a walk, or a nap, and from the outside, to the untrained eye, it looks a lot like you're just hanging out, or daydreaming, or...taking a nap. But it is work, and it's lonely sometimes, which is hard to remedy. When you take your laptop to the neighborhood coffee shop you can't help but feeling like a wretched poseur because the very act of taking a laptop to a coffee shop is completely redolent of conspicuous artiness and flat-out fakery. Real writers don't write in coffee shops. Would-be poets and frustrated undergrads write in coffee shops (exclusively about themselves, I think). Real writers write at home. Sans latte.

So needless to say I am quite desperate to finish up the draft of this book and stick some chapters on the web just so everyone can see what I've been doing, or will at least be convinced that I've been doing something.
| #

Welcome to A Moment of Jen, author Jennifer Weiner's constantly-updated take on books, baby, and news of the world. Email me at jen (a) jenniferweiner.com.

JenniferWeiner.com
Facebook
Follow me on Twitter

To order Then Came You, click on the cover

To order Fly Away Home, click on the cover

To order Best Friends Forever, click on the cover

To order Certain Girls, click on the cover

To order The Guy Not Taken, click on the cover

To order Goodnight Nobody, click on the cover:

To order Little Earthquakes, click on the cover:

To order In Her Shoes, click on the cover:

To order Good In Bed, click on the cover:

My bio
JenniferWeiner.com
Advice For Aspiring Writers

This weblog is now syndicated via this link.

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]

Jen International

Goodnight Nobody - Norway

Little Earthquakes - Norway

The Guy Not Taken - UK

Good In Bed - Japan

Good In Bed - Dutch

The Guy Not Taken (Dutch)

Goodnight, London!

Goodnight, Amsterdam!

Petit Earthquakes!

Little Earthquakes Japan

IHS Japan

GIB Norway

IHS Norway

Chaussure à son pied

Little Aardschocken

In Her Shoes - Polish

En sus Zapatos

Bueno en la Cama!

Little Earthquakes - Germany

In Her Shoes - Germany

In Her Shoes - UK

In Her Shoes - Italian

In Her Shoes - Dutch

GIB in Finnish

GIB in French

Germans love Hasselhoff and GIB:

Cannie hits Japan!:

NEW - Little Earthquakes Sweden

Cannie goes Swedish!

Cannie hits Rio!

Cannie Goes Dutch:

Polish:

Jen's Favorite Links:

All in the Family:

Throwing Things
Joe Weiner
BenderSpink

News and Media:
MediaNews
Television Without Pity

LitLife:
Moby Lives
Publisher's Weekly
Booksense
Old Hag
Beatrice
Sarah Weinman
Galley Cat
Southern Comfort

Baby Mama:
Bad Mother
Parsley

Snarkspot archives:

Copyright 2002-2008, Jennifer Weiner