THE LIFE OF AN "ESTABLISHED WRITER"

Shortly after The View from Stalin's Head came out, I received a kind email from an appreciative reader who asked me to write her back because she thought it would be good for her to hear from an "established writer." My first instinct was to look around the room to see if there were any established writers nearby who could send her a reply.

If publication makes you an established writer, then I suppose I am one. Still, I can't help feeling like an imposter, that somehow I have pulled the wool over the eyes of my editor and my agent, as well as the editors of every magazine and anthology where I've been published, every contest judge who's given me a prize, every teacher and critic who's said something nice about my work. I doubt I'm the only writer who ever felt this way. Flannery O'Connor once compared the experience of reading your own work to chewing on the carpet.

I suspect that part of the reason I don't feel established is that my day to day life looks nothing like I'd imagined it would after achieving the magical goal of publication. For starters, I'd always thought an established writer would spend each day of the week laboring industriously and faithfully on his laptop, only breaking off typing long enough to take a phone call from the editors of The New Yorker, troubling him for a column or story for their very next issue. Or perhaps the call comes from his agent, to tell him which literary prize he's been nominated for this week, which bestseller list he's hit, or which foreign publisher or Hollywood producer is begging for a sneak peak at his newest work. The phone rings again, this time from the New York Times. They're interested in another feature for the Arts section. (That makes three this month!)

Once a week, the established writer hails a taxi and rides up to the local University to teach a graduate workshop in fiction, not because he needs the money, but simply because it amuses him. Also, it gives him a chance to shape the future of fiction, as if his widely-read novels haven't already done so. On weekends, the established writer attends literary gatherings in swank cocktail lounges or in some important person's living room, where he sips champagne and munches on crackers spread with goat cheese and arugula.

There may actually be some writers who live this way, but I do not. First of all, though I try to write every day, it's never in any kind of continuous time frame. My work tends to come out in a series of disconnected spurts. A half hour on the subway home from work. Fifteen minutes between giving in to the constant temptation to check my email so I can delete the latest span from 1-800-Flowers.com. Okay, I'm ready to focus, get back to work. Except that it might be a good idea to make a cup of tea first so I don't fall asleep while typing because I've been up since 6:30 am. While I'm at it, I'll grab a quick granola bar just to keep up my strength, and then a glass of water because I'm dehydrated from the tea. I'm typing again, but oops, now I have to go to the bathroom because I've had the water and the tea. While I'm up, I'd better check the news.

Somehow I manage to produce work this way, and occasionally people give me money for it. Fifty dollars here. One hundred there. Sometimes more, but not often. And then there are the book advances (minus agent's fee, minus taxes), which I'm very glad and thankful for, though they have yet to reach quit-my-day-job proportions.

I teach, because I love to, but also because I need the money to live. And, though I'm eager and happy to serve my students, when I'm done for the day, I'm sometimes so exhausted from performing for a crowd (because teaching really is a constant performance), I don't want to turn on my computer or open my notebook. I just want to close my eyes and hear absolute quiet.

I do socialize with other writers, but we tend to avoid swanky lounges because they're expensive and none of us have that much spare money. We teach English to immigrants or composition for state schools, coach girls' field hockey, work as personal trainers, tutor children from wealthy families, work for magazines and publishers and caterers and on and on. Never once has Ethan Hawke, Bono, or Salman Rushdie appeared at any of our gatherings.

And yet, though my life as an established writer has not turned out as I'd expected, I still consider myself extraordinarily blessed. My days are interesting and varied. I get to learn about subjects I never would have otherwise gotten interested in. (For my current novel, set in Berlin, I'm studying physics, pregnancy, the German language, as well as Colette's Claudine novels and Anne Tyler's Earthly Possessions.) I spend a part of each day doing something I love. And my work is out in the world. People read and even enjoy it. Occasionally their lives are touched by it, like the woman who came to hear me read in Detroit because she'd been moved by an essay I'd written about the late Janet Frame, or another woman here in New York who came to a reading just to tell me how much she'd loved my stories. Those moments are wonderful.

Then there are moments that aren't wonderful, like when you get a bad review, or when someone says to you he's been trying to get through your book, really he has, but he simply has better things to do with his time, like staring at his toenails. As an occasional critic myself, I know how easy it is to lapse into tearing apart someone's work. If you want to write, you have to accept that such criticism is part of the price you pay to be in the game.

There will always be times you go unnoticed, unrecognized, rejected. Or when you'll wait centuries to be paid and feel embarrassed to send that politely nudging email that basically says, "Um, I lived up to my part of the bargain and did the work. Can you pay me that hundred dollars you owe me?" And worst of all is writers' block, when you're staring at a notebook page and the only thought that comes to mind is that you've managed to fake out the world this long, but no longer. You really are an imposter and a cheat and guilty of every writing sin your worst critics have accused you of. You ought to get out your checkbook and issue refunds to anyone who's ever wasted a tin nickel to read something you've written.

Becoming a writer in reality (as opposed to my fantasy) has taught me that a writer's life means giving up control, which is no different than anyone else's life, except that I can say that I chose my fate, that I had a dream and I followed it where it led me. The only thing I can control is my attitude. For example, now I'm thankful for some of the rejections and criticism I've gotten. I wouldn't want some of those stories published today, and the criticism, even when I didn't agree with it, made me stronger, made me fight harder, made me more certain that this was the right thing to do with my life because I didn't allow those critics to convince me to quit.

You can cry and rail against the editors of the magazines and publishing houses and the whole literary world, but if you're really indignant about where you've ended up as a writer, the best thing to do is write a novel or story collection to prove to the world how wrong it is for not recognizing your talent all this time. But be careful, because even if you do manage to create a work of genius, the world may not be ready or even in the mood to pay attention. There might be a war or a terrorist attack, an election, or even the debut of a new TV reality show hosted by Alan Thicke overshadowing your accomplishment. No time for art.

So the life of an established writer has turned out to be pretty much the same as the life of an unestablished writer, just with a few new wrinkles. And a few perks, like seeing your book in a store occasionally. Also, now people don't ask me what I'm going to do when I grow up. Instead they want to know if they can buy my book in a real store or if I can give them a free copy.

In this blog, I plan to document what it's really like to be a working, perhaps "established" writer. I hope that my example demystifies the writer mystique for general readers. I also hope that it's something for writers of all stripes, including those who feel that they aren't established but long to be, to identify with as well as take heart from.