The Nightlife of a Novelist (real and imagined)

Long before I became a novelist, I used to imagine being one. I thought about how cool it must be to write all day and roam the night. I thought about the freedom of having no boss, nobody telling you what to do on the page or off it. Just infinite creativity, full expression, pure human experience.

So, yeah, I used to daydream about life—particularly nightlife—as a fiction writer.

And then sh*t got real. 

 

Here’s how I imagined a typical night in a novelist’s life before I started writing long fiction fifteen years ago:

You sidle up to the bar and nod at Charlie. You needn’t utter a word—Charlie knows your drink. Has known it for years. Knew it before your first novel changed the landscape. Knew it before you declined the National Book Award because you wanted to stay hungry. Knew it before the signed photo of you hanging on the wall behind the bar was hung on the wall behind the bar. 

Bourbon, neat.

The beautiful woman you’ve pretended not to notice sitting on the barstool to your left, babysitting a martini, glances at you, then at the photo, then at you again. “Hey, isn’t that you up there?” she asks, pointing at your framed black-and-white smugness.

You shake your head. “It was.”

The woman knits her brow, then turns her attention back to her martini.     

Charlie hands you a lowball filled too high. You hand him a twenty—you try to, anyway. He shakes his head and says it’s on the house. You shake your head and say he’s an enabler, then drop the twenty into the tip jar.

Charlie tells you he just finished your latest book. Says it’s your best one yet. You tell him you didn’t tip him to lie to you. He laughs, then asks what you’re working on now.

“Just this bourbon,” you say.

The martini woman scoffs. “You know, being so clever all the time actually isn’t.”

You nod and tell her you’re going to borrow that line.

“Be my guest,” she says. “You could use some new lines—I’ve read your last two novels.” She then knocks back her martini, grabs her bag from a hook below the bar, and leaves without another word.

And just like that, you’re smitten. But you’re not going to let falling in love ruin your mood.

The air. It’s thick with booze. Broken hearts. Bad intentions.

It’s going to be a good night.

 

And here’s how a typical night in a novelist’s life (mine, anyway) ACTUALLY looks:

“What the hell are you doing in there?” your wife shouts from the living room. “You said you were just going to your writing office to grab your phone. Come back here and watch this show with me.”

“Sorry baby, still looking for my phone,” you say as you continue typing ferociously yet as quietly as possible. “Be right there—didn’t realize the commercials were over already.”

Your wife reminds you that Netflix doesn’t show commercials and that you yourself had asked her to pause the show. And that you had promised you wouldn’t sneak off to write tonight.

“I’m not writing,” you say, your fingers tapping as fast as lightning and as light as a feather on the keyboard. You haven’t had a creative spurt like this in weeks. What’s flying onto the screen might be the best thing you’ve written in years.

“Then why do I hear tapping?” your wife shouts from three rooms away.

You stop typing and take a swig from one of the cans of Monster you keep hidden in your writing office and say, “That was just my fingertips drumming on the desk to help me think where I left the darn phone.” You then take a swig from the flask of vodka you keep hidden behind the cans of Monster.

Your wife says don’t worry, she’ll call your phone to help you find it.

“Wait! I think I know where it is now,” you say while an idea for an amazing plot twist for Chapter 16 pops into your head and has you frothing at the mouth, though the frothing may just be from the energy drink. “Yup, here it is—it had slid under the printer.” You take another swig of Monster, and two more swigs of vodka.

“Finally,” your wife says. “Now get back here so we can finish watch—”

“Ohhh nooo,” you call out slowly, stalling to give you time to finish your notes for the killer scene you just thought of. “There are a bunch of text messages from Ted. He says Janet just dumped him and he’s in a really dark place. Says to please call him. Says he needs someone to talk to or he might do something crazy.”

“Oh my god, call him!” your wife cries out. “Poor Ted!”

“Okay, calling him now. Thanks for understanding, baby. So sorry—I promise we’ll finish that episode later tonight.”

You feel awful and you don’t deserve her but more importantly you just bought yourself at least an hour of uninterrupted writing time, fueled by your unstoppable creative spirit and your Monster.

But first you need to tweet something witty about #writerslife and #amwriting. Lucky for you, your wife doesn’t have a Twitter account.

You send out a tweet about how nothing stands between you and your novel, and the tweet already has two likes from hardworking, dedicated writers just like you who are busy browsing Twitter instead of writing. Time to get back to your manuscript. But first, you take another quick peek at your tweet to make sure it doesn’t contain any typos or anything and … SWEET—another like!

Okay, no more screwing around. This novel isn’t going to write itself, and you can’t risk falling out of the zone you’re in right now. You click back to the manuscript and … damn it. You just realized the amazing plot twist you came up with a few minutes ago has a huge hole in it and will never work.

No biggie. You know you’ll come up with an even better twist by the time you get to Chapter 16. In the meantime, you’ll just keep working on Chapter 2, moving the story forward, building tension, increasing the stakes—basically creating a gritty crime thriller that will be impossible for readers to put down. You’ve got this! But first, you check your email.

In your inbox is a message from an agent who a month ago asked to see the manuscript for the novel you finished six months ago but have yet to get published. Before, opening the email, you pray to God this is “the one,” then apologize to God about you being agnostic up until now. You remind God you gave five dollars to a homeless man the other day, then click on the email to open the message. The agent says she’s really glad you gave her a chance to read your manuscript (cool, cool) and says she really enjoyed it (yeah?!) and thinks the book will have no problem finding a publisher (YES!), but that she doesn’t feel she’s the right person to champion it and thus cannot offer you representation at this time.

You shout a string of obscenities, and your wife asks if everything’s okay. “Yes, sorry,” you say. “Just letting Ted know how upset I am about him and Janet splitting up.” Your wife tells you to try to exhibit a more positive vibe for Ted. You say sure thing, then cover your mouth with your mouse pad and scream the rest of the obscenities you know into it.

You take a few deep breaths and start to calm down. You convince yourself there are plenty of agents out there who’d kill to rep you, and that the book in question is your breakout novel. You slap yourself in the face, tell yourself to toughen up, and vow to keep plugging away at the new manuscript no matter what as soon as you check to see how your tweet is doing.

Your tweet has no new likes. Also, you just received another rejection notification via email. And worst of all, your flask is empty. You decide to use all this frustration and dejection as fuel, to have it ignite your soul and elicit from you the most harrowing and gripping set of chapters you’ve ever written. Halfway through the first sentence, you realize you haven’t checked the sales of your existing books since dinner. You check. You haven’t sold any books since last week when your mother bought yet another copy and forced it on a friend.

You start crying a little—partly due to your failures as a writer, and partly due to Ted and Janet breaking up. Then you remember Ted and Janet didn’t actually break up, but this doesn’t cheer you up because you’ve never really liked Janet.

You pop one of the Xanax you keep hidden behind the Monster and the vodka in your office.

Your wife knocks on your office door. “You still talking to Ted?” she asks.

“Hold on a second, Ted,” you say into your pretend phone, which you then pretend to cover even though your office door is closed and your wife can't see you. “Yeah," you say to her. "Poor guy’s a mess.”

Your wife says she thought she heard you crying. You say that was actually Ted— that you accidentally put him on speaker for a moment there. She asks why she hasn’t heard you say anything besides several curse words since you started talking to Ted. You tell her Ted just needs someone to listen to him right now.

Another plot twist idea pops into your head. You tell your wife you feel bad for making Ted hold like this and need to get back to lending him your ear.

“Sorry about that, Ted,” you say into your pretend phone loud enough for your wife to hear. “Please continue. Yeah, you were saying you don’t know how you’re going to get through this, and I was telling you I know you will, and that I’m here for you, and that you have so much to live for.”

Through the door, your wife says you’re a good friend. A good man. A great husband. Says she’s lucky to have you in her life.

You take a break from staring at your manuscript to cover your pretend phone, then tell your wife, “Ditto.”

“Oh, and by the way,” your wife says, a little bite in her voice, “I have your phone.”

She pauses for your heart attack, then says, “You left it on the couch before running to your writing office to find it.”

Says she was just on a real phone call—with Janet. Says Janet’s doing great. Ted too.

Says she’s going to stay with them for the next few days, maybe longer.

Says, “That ought to give you plenty of time to write. Jackass.”

 

Before any of you unsubscribe, un-follow, un-friend me, and/or urge my wife to divorce me, please note that what you just read is full of hyperbole and over-dramatizations for the sake of entertainment. I assure you I would never cover my mouth with my mouse pad—that thing has mold growing on it from all the vodka and Monster I’ve spilled on it. Also, I don’t have any friends named Ted, or in general.

If you would like to contribute funds to help pay for the therapy Greg needs, you can do so by going to his Amazon author page, clicking on one (or all) of the books featured, then clicking the “Buy Now” icon.