The Life Unglamorous

When I was a little girl, I thought the life of a romance novelist was full of pink feather boas and tiaras.  I was going to live in New York City, in a highrise apartment building, preferably the penthouse, and spend all day madly writing manuscripts and scheduling television appearances to promote my latest masterpeice.  I'd have a maid.  I'd have the perfect looks, the perfect body.  The little people would swoon when I walked into a room.  I would always be fashionably late. 

 

I suppose that might have been possible.  Heck, everything is possible, right?  But I didn't pursue writing professionally until just a few years ago and the wheels of my station-wagon life had already begun to turn.  I married a great guy when I was just seventeen years old.  (We're happier than most but this in no way recommends early marriage -- we both agree it would have been easier if we'd been older).  We settled in the deserts of Utah and after almost ten years finally bought our first horse.  I continued to write, for my own peace of mind, on and off for all those years.  But mostly, I changed diapers, mowed lawns, held various full-time jobs including telemarketer and legal secretary, and relegated the penthouse and the tiara to the realms of fantasy and daydreaming.

 

Then it happened.  I'm a romance novelist.  For real.  I get paid for this.  It's amazing!  Even when I don't feel like writing, on those days when writing feels just like any other 'job', I am still amazed that this is what I do.  But the glamour is still a myth.  I don't sit around in silk pajamas typing the next great American novel.  I spend my days cooking and cleaning, raising our children, tending our horses.  And I write as much as I can, but since I'm not paid by the hour and I have no set schedule, it's more difficult than I'd thought it would be.

 

There is no penthouse.  I don't have a maid.  Heck, I am the maid.  But it's okay.  Because I love my family and I love what I do, even if I have to remind myself of that fact on those days when I can't remember where I put my tiara.