It's a hard knock life for us

To become a writer means you have a love of words. We're definitely not doing it for the money. Don't get me wrong, there are rich authors out there, but it came from a lot of HARD work. No one does it overnight.
If you want to be famous, don't become an author. I watch a lot of movies and anytime the lead character is an author -- I cringe.
Take The Best Man, for example, Harper's first book was picked up by Oprah's book club, he was walking around with this sexy preview copy and telling all of his friends about his book. But we never saw this dude write. Never saw him talk to his editor. It all just looked so easy. That's not even close to the world an author lives in.

In the real world, he probably would've had to skip the wedding, put his romantic life on hold while hammering out such a great book and unless he had a hell of a day job (especially in the economy) he wouldn't have been able to afford such a great place off the strength of an unpublished book.

Many writers that I know still work a full time job and spend their free time coming up with amazing books. That's not to say that many writers aren't working for themselves.
As a writer, you have to learn how to say no to your friends and family — though they may be supportive sometimes they don't understand what #amwriting means. If I'm up at midnight, I'm writing, I can't talk to you on the phone and write. If it's Labor Day, Fourth of July or Memorial Day and I have an extra 24-hours with no work, I need to write. I can't go to the family barbecue, beach party or gathering at Nana's house.
Don't think of it as me being anti-social. But I'm working.

Then you have the people who, upon finding out that you're a writer and have a book published, want free copies of your book. OK. It's one thing to have a contest and give out copies of your book. To me, I'm telling my readers thank you. Granted, everyone won't be getting a free copy. However, I don't ask for free pizza at your job. Or let me get those purple leather boots for free. That's not cool. It's almost like saying, that's not real work. It's very offensive and you can believe that you won't be getting anything for free.

But at the end of the day, it only takes one email from a reader to remind you that in order to have a beautiful rose, there must be a few thorns.

PS: My iPad is not a toy, don't ask me what game I'm playing. I'm writing!

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