Surreal-ization

You know what I realized recently:
I know people who write books.

Even though I don't work in writing or publishing I've come into contact with most of these people because of my job, either directly and indirectly.

That is SO cool! Writing a book is something I always "joke" about doing. I say joke, because I usually reference it casually and with humor, but there is truth there. I would LOVE to write a book. Right now my job requires writing, so my creative and word-smithing part of my brain is getting exercised...but writing press releases about printers and background on reporters is not the same as writing "a guide to gentle living."

In the moments when I have thought "SRSLY. I should write a book." I have researched the process and how it works, only to get discouraged. G-Funk used to do PR for a book publisher and she says it's REALLY tough to get published. Not only do you have to write a WHOLE BOOK, you have to make find an editor to read it AND get it to stand out in their mind above and beyond the THOUSANDS of book proposals they receive in a month. Even if they agree to publish it, the hours of writing and editing and re-writing and editing might only yield a couple thousand bucks. So hopefully you can hold down a day job amidst the writing and editing and re-writing and editing and....

So add my secret dream of writing a book to the knowledge that it is super difficult and authors are pretty impressive in my world.

AND I KNOW SOME! I know people who have written fiction and non-fiction. People who have put together at least a couple hundred pages of interesting, coherent content. How cool is that?!?!

It's pretty surreal actually.