Writer’s Digest has a little feature in which they feature authors talking about their upcoming first book. I like to read this to kick my own posterior because these authors are always much younger than I am.
In this month’s addition, there’s a young woman whose first book of poetry is coming out. How did she get there? She entered a lot of contests. She worked on her MA, then her MFA.
I have no idea of whether this young woman is a good poet or not. My guess is that she’s pretty good to get a book published. But it made me think of my own torturous path.
I am of the generation that thought you had to have a backup plan if you wanted to be a writer. “Yeah, dreams are good, but you need to eat.”
My not-so-brilliant backup plan? The Law. I graduated from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of law and passed the bar in 1987. Little did the Administration know that the main reason I wanted to be a lawyer is to get enough experience to write legal mysteries. My first job out of school, with the Orange County Public Defender, gave me enough material to last the rest of my life.
Yet the work absorbed me. I stopped being a writer who practiced law and became a lawyer who wrote on his off-hours. In fact, up till 1997, I rarely wrote at all. The work assimilated me just as surely as the Borg assimilates Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. And with similar results.
Now it is 34 years later. I am still slogging away at the law, though it’s not as much fun as it was when I was with the OCPD. I have only myself to blame. I could have worked there my entire career and would be retired now. But I had to roam.
Right now I’m in my little office in Victorville with a ton of work on my desk. I have a mediation tomorrow and need to get a mediation brief in by noon. I have a stack of letters to write. I have 16 things on my “to do” calendar.
Yet I still write at night. I’m working on the third revision of the Minerva novel. I’m at 60,000 words and will likely top 70,000, which is the sweet spot for mysteries. And yes, the novel is flowing better this time because I solved a few problems. Which is a blog for another day.
Right now, I need to get back to work. The LawBorg demands my allegiance. I have been assimilated. Hail LawBorg!
Mark Bruce, Writer 