Many writers, myself included, subsist on alternate vocational income while writing aspirations slowly take flight. Because even a respectable platform still renders one far from established author privies---Namely, tallying up royalty checks while nursing writer's block with umbrella'd drinks (or good rye) at tropical locales (or at least Coronado).

Few writers ever access such a lifestyle. And non-writing, normal work-week folks don't seem to get that writers may actually work more than non-writers, not less. I've laughed off many comments from 9-5ers, who assume that once you've penned a decent novel that you're home free. Someone even asked if I "sit at home doing nothing all day now". She works for the government.

Yesterday, I happened upon an article by Daniel Dalton, a staff writer at Buzzfeed, solidifying those very same generalizations--that being a writer equals conveniently low productivity and a loose definition of "work". I was irritated and so spent two hours in a caffeine-fueled attempt to refute the article (see link below).

But the fact is, the more I tried to argue with his tongue-in-cheek funnies, the more I found them to be amusing and even somewhat relatable. So, my rebuttal was essentially a waste of two hours.

Read Dalton's full article for yourself, a list of 29 words that mean something totally different when you're a writer to see if he's got your number. I found #23 "Editing" to be the most spot on. It seems that wasting time on garbage writing is a common offense among word-slingers.

But thanks to Dalton, I can now call that work.