So, What Do You Do?

By Mimi Greenwood Knight

For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.

~Doug Larson

"So, what do you do?" For years, I was afraid to say it out loud — to use that six-letter word — to reply, "I'm a writer." But after ten years, three hundred articles in print, and essays in a couple dozen anthologies, I'm getting bolder.

The problem with that question is that it's not like you go, "I'm a banker."

And they say, "cool," and leave it at that.

Admit you're "a writer" and be prepared for many questions, the most tactless of which is, "Have you been published?" To this, I always want to answer, "Well, duh."

Then there's the popular "what do you write?"

"Non-fiction... no... creative non-fiction. No wait! Okay, I do write creative non-fiction... I mean, it's what I like to write... but I write some editorial stuff too just to pay the bills. Okay, actually, I'm writing a lot of advertorial lately. It pays better, and I try to make it as creative as I can. So I'm a fiction writer dabbling in non-fiction... okay... ad copy. But, hey, writing is writing. Right?"

But the question I dread most — because I keep asking it myself — is, "When are you gonna write a book?"

It reminds me of those old Fawlty Towers episodes where John Cleese clutches his knee, crying, "Shrapnel. Korean War," when he wants to escape an awkward situation.

Someone asks, "So, when are you gonna write a book?" I grab my wrist, pitch forward with, "Carpal tunnel. Late night deadline," and the conversation moves along.

But if I had a year to do nothing but write, that book would just come tumbling out. Wouldn't it? A publisher would gobble it up. Oprah would love it. Then no one would ask if I'd been published or even what I do for a living. They'd know.

So that's what I need — one year to write. Of course, it would have to come with some fringe benefits. A maid, for one, so I'm not blithely courting the muse when the dryer goes off and I dash to pull the cottons out before they wrinkle. (The muse hates that!)

And I wouldn't need a full-time nanny, just someone to shuttle the kids back and forth to school and do the extracurricular stuff like football and piano and dance and HOMEWORK. And the maid could cook.

I'd have a valid excuse to avoid a half-dozen volunteer commitments to "work on my book," and my husband would hold up on his strategy of slowly delegating all the yard work to me.

With housework, yard work, volunteer stuff and the kids out of the way, I'd have all the time I want to write about — uh — housework, yard work, volunteer stuff, and the kids. Since I write mostly about the day-to-day happenings with kids and house and husband — with life — my creative non-fiction would have to be all the more "creative," I suppose.

When I'm lamenting the sight of Mount Dishmore in my sink, all the while knowing the maid took care of it first thing this morning, when I'm cracking myself up recounting the agility with which I maneuver through the after-school pick-up line while scribbling an essay in a notebook, I'll have to summon the memory of what that was like.

There may be a kink in my reasoning. A year to write uninterrupted would leave me little to write about since the interruptions have been my inspiration — especially those interruptions with Oreo-smeared faces and their clothes on backwards. Where would I find fodder for my stories if writing was suddenly all I had to do?

If I'm honest with myself, my "writing year" would probably look a lot like the ten that preceded it — frantic, frenzied, but magical. So, when I'm asked what I do, I can honestly say, "I take naps under blanket forts and lament the fact that my daughter suddenly looks so good in her jeans. I dye my hair unnatural colors I found on the sale table and covertly hide the slimy vegetables I forgot to cook at the bottom of the trashcan. I make out with my husband in the driveway, when the kids are asleep, stash the good ice cream in the back of the fridge for myself, and trim the part of the roast the cat gnawed before I serve it to company. On a good day, I get a little of it down on paper."

And, occasionally, somebody prints it.

http://www.chickensoup.com