Two hours into my cafe…

Two hours into my cafe time and no writing yet. This is pretty standard -- I get here, I work on e-mail for two hours, catch up on some of the backlog, and then when I have two hours left, I actually open up the story file and start writing. I know a lot of writers wouldn't find this a good work pattern -- they'd just keep goofing off on the web, and actually prefer cafes without wifi. But for whatever reason, it works for me. I can't even track all the little e-mails I've dealt with this morning -- SLF stuff, Kriti festival stuff, socializing with friends stuff, a reprint request, a revision request, trying to organize an author photo, soliciting possible blurbs...

Even leaving aside the volunteer projects I work on, there's a fair bit of business-y stuff that just goes with being a writer. In some ways it's as tedious as any other business work -- but on the other hand, it's all still pleasing too. When I have to send an e-mail dealing with the specifics of a revision request, I still get a bit of a charge from the fact that I'm a working writer, that I get to write business letters about my job as a fiction writer. This is part of why people who work at virtuous non-profits can put up with a third of the income they would get writing the same sorts of letters for a profit-mongering corporation -- because they get that tiny bit of extra pleasure with every business word they type. I've been working as a writer in one form or another for ten years now, and I still find this tremendously satisfying. I hope I never lose track of how lucky I am to have this job.

I need to get another cup of tea now, and then write.

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