THE NARRATIVE ARC
If You Dream of Being a Writer, Maybe Read This First, Okay?
A few words to hang on to when you’re drowning
You need to get a job, she says.
It’s a tired old conversation but she thinks she’s right. So she’s going to keep bringing it up again and again. For my own good, of course.
I’m doing fine, I say.
No, she says. You’re not doing fine. What you are is irresponsible.
I’m mad and she can tell, but she doesn’t care. Because she’s so darn sure she’s right I can see it written all over her face. Makes me determined to wipe that smug look off her pretty face. It’s just — how to do that.
I’m getting a dollar a word, I say.
The look on her face makes me laugh. Because I know. She had no idea. How much a writer can earn, what’s even possible. So I rub it in a little. Tell her I’m just finishing a twelve hundred word piece. Let her do the math.
But I know her. She’s not done until she has the last word. So she says sure, but it’s not going to last and you’ll be scrambling again. Like I don’t know that. Tells me I’m a single mother, like I don’t know that either.
