There are some challenges that every freelance writer must face, and one of those challenges is… well… being a freelance writer.

“So, you write,” they say. “But… what do you do?”

Ow. But… valid. Like many other creative professionals, the writers of our generation are experts at snapping aesthetically pleasing photos of their workspaces and daily activities. They’re dropping rustic flower arrangements and pages of flawless calligraphy in your Instagram feed like they ditched their corporate jobs and were instantly transported to Narnia. It’s easy to look at all that beauty and think, Wow, that’s the life. Unfortunately, like many other creative professionals, the writers of our generation are experts at staging aesthetically pleasing photos, too. (Well, except me. I’m a pretty awful photographer, tbh.)

Nevertheless, writers are some of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet, so the line between social media and reality is kind of fuzzy.

Maybe we should clear it up. Day in the life, anyone?

What They Think We Do

I once had a lady ask me if I just bum around in my pajamas all day, drinking coffee and scrolling Pinterest, and I honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

To be fair, I occasionally treat myself to a pajama day, and Pinterest is a handy tool for gathering inspiration. But these blog posts don’t write themselves. My manuscript edits don’t magically cross themselves off my list. Newsletters aren’t inexplicably sent, and social media posts don’t automatically generate based on my mood (though that would be interesting).

On the surface, being a freelance writer probably does look like the freedom to wear sweats to work and guzzle all the coffee in the building. It’s the Instagram author life, right? We’re all sitting around our custom-made desks with the Game of Thrones soundtrack blaring and bookish candles burning, and there’s kombucha brewing in the kitchen (we made it during all that free time we have) and fairy lights hanging over our beds (for our afternoon naps, of course). All this talk about brainstorming and worldbuilding makes it sound like we’re full-time daydreamers, casually throwing words at other words to see if they stick and baking cookies when they don’t. No big deal, right? The only thing riding on this whole writing business is our livelihood.

There’s always more than what’s visible from the surface.

Rebecca Ross appreciation moment, though. She gives me a lot of hope. She really has a custom-made desk and can handle listening to epic music while she works. She actually does burn candles while drinking kombucha and takes magical pictures of it all. What the heck–I’ll just link to them.

And don’t get me wrong. Every writer is capable of getting lost in daydreams. We are hoping and praying and begging the words to stick. But we do it all with passion. With heart. With a deep-seated need to share our story with the world in an ardent effort to make it a better place for humanity. That’s a day in the life.

What We Actually Do

We wake up early to try to clear our minds before we force them to do unnatural things like create worlds that don’t exist.

The mind-clearing thing didn’t work, so we put on normal people clothes in preparation for a nice afternoon stroll away from our laptops.

We try to remember to eat meals at actual mealtimes.

We fill up on words by reading others’ work.

We research weird things like early 1900s swimwear and other stuff that would concern our high school guidance counselors if they ever found out.

We outline exactly what we’re going to write in hopes that we won’t get sidetracked.

We got sidetracked, so we go ahead and take that walk even though our inner worlds are hanging on by a thread.

We remind ourselves how much we love to write.

Okay, that detour wasn’t as bad as we thought, and we deserve chocolate.

We start holding a grudge against the glare of our laptop screens and pull out a good old-fashioned legal pad and, after throwing out a few dry ones, finally find a pen that works.

We realize that we’re going to have to type up all these hand-written notes later and promptly move back to our laptops.

We type until our wrists hurt and we can’t think anymore and how will we ever wake up tomorrow and do this again?!

We wake up and do it again.

A day in the life of a freelance writer is a day in the life of a human with a dream that just won’t die. We force aside fear and doubt and the little voice that says it’s too hard, and we write for the one person who needs our story even more than we do.

And the best part (besides not going broke buying scoby and fairy lights)? This crazy and somewhat inhumane process eventually produces magic. Beautiful, tangible magic in the form of novels, short stories, poems, articles…. You name it, we wrote it. We fought for it. For you. For ourselves. For those who will come after us.

Friends, we’re not bumming around in our pajamas.

We’re cutting our souls free.