I’m sure I’ll use those very same words differently in a different context but, for now, I’m using them for the events of just the past few days.
It seems like the moment Sullivan Maxx signed me to represent my book, Climbing Maya, that was the moment I became a professional writer. It wasn’t when Myth of the Cubicle was produced last year or when I found out that Persecution Complex is being produced this year. It wasn’t when I sold Wormfood Island to Northern Frights Publishing, either, though it probably should have been.
I think things really changed with Climbing Maya because it just got too difficult to deny it any longer! And I was so used to denying it. Hell, I had been raised to deny it. I had been told from childhood that anything artistic should also have a “Plan B”. What happens when you tell someone to have a “Plan B” is that you spend so much time working on “Plan B” that you forget you’re supposed to identify yourself with PLAN A! (I discuss this further on the Ken La Salle blog, so let’s move on…)
While I’ve been spreading the news in my controlled kind of manner (“Look, I got an agent. Cool, huh?”), Vicky’s been spreading the news a bit differently (“Woo hoo! Money time! We’re rich, I tells ya! Riiiicccchhhhh!!!!”). I’ve been trying to caution her against getting her hopes too high.
All the same, though, things have changed. Rather than looking for a full-time job, I’m looking for something part-time, temporary. Who knows what kind of business the digital books will bring in once word on the other two gets out there? And the big desk Vicky just bought me, to replace the dinky desk I still use from 1986-ish, no longer feels like an unnecessary extravagance. I feel like I deserve it, which is a strange feeling for me.
I’m no longer the bum who can’t find a job. I’m the writer waiting for his check…
This is all going to take some getting used to.
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