Laughing Matters: The One About Being a Writer

By Ryan G. Van Cleave |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

So, an investment banker, a corporate lawyer, and a writer all walk into a bar. . .

With a setup like that, you sort of expect a zinger punchline, right? But I’m the writer in this equation, and the other two folks are my pals Mike and Dave (no, not the ones in the movie who desperately need wedding dates). And this setup is no joke at all, but rather what happened last Thursday at a Main Street drinkery in the almost-wee hours of night.

You might also think (cue the Sesame Street “One of these things is not the other/one of these things just doesn’t belong” song) this month’s column is about the likely income disparity between us. Nope, that’s not the story here, though in all likelihood, both of them carry more 20s in their wallets than I do singles.

We order our drinks (Patron, Grey Goose, and my Coors Light), and then Mike gives me the stink eye. “You’re doing it,” he says. I say, “Huh? What?” To which he replies: “Writing.”

He’s correct—I’m thinking about how to use a sandy-haired, middle-aged investment banker in my new YA thriller. But I lie, saying, “Nuh-uh.”

Dave chimes in with, “You’ve got that I’m-writing-a-novel look. It’s the same look Alfie [his Yorkipoo] gives me when I crack open a can of Purina One. Only with less drooling.”

I consider fighting them on this, but why bother? They’re right. I’m a bit like James Thurber, I guess, the cartoonist, humorist, and writer for The New Yorker, who famously said: “I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.”

So, I stare at my buddies and proudly say, “Yes, I’m a writer. What’s YOUR superpower?” Then I’m reaching for my omnipresent notebook to jot down ideas on how to market that phrase on a t-shirt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars of profit. They burst into laughter.

Writers and artists have long suffered the slings and arrows of Those Who Don’t Get It. I want to tell them the truth, that being a good writer is 2% talent, 2% luck, and 96% not getting sucked into internet time-wasters. I want to tell them the pain of writer’s block, when even my imaginary friends won’t speak with me. I want them to think I’m a wee bit quirky and maybe a touch “dangerous” by admitting that I became a writer so I could finally give all those voices in my head something productive to do.

Instead, I offer my buddies a joke (my sidekick character in the new novel is a nonstop joke cracker, a real yukster, so I’m loaded for bear in the ha-ha department). I put down my beer and say, “What’s green and has wheels? Grass. I lied about the wheels.”

I’m all about the follow-through when I commit to something, so I give them one more—the same thigh-smacker my sidekick delivers to guffaws at a PTA meeting. “Why do you smear peanut butter on the road? To go with the traffic jam.”

Then comes That Moment—where my pals move onto talking about mortgages or the bite radius of a velociraptor or whatever it is people talk about when I’m zoning out to think about a writing project versus paying attention. That’s what writers do, I realize. We live entirely in our own world, where the rules are just different. Like when my wife says, “I don’t see how helping with the dishes is going to burn up your creative energy,” and I act like she’s asking me to French kiss an anteater. Or when my neighbor invites me to a backyard cookout, and while she asks me how I want my burger done, the grammarian in me starts to giggle at the “well done, well-done, or well, done” possibilities.

My pals order another round and then Mike says, “It must be nice not having a real job.” Though Dave finally admits, “I always thought I’d write a book someday when I retire and have time to kill.”

And just like that, I decide to change chapter 45 so that when my protagonist whips out an M203 Grenade Launcher, the only two people who get blasted to smithereens are named Ted Mike and Brandon Dave. One’s a dentist banker and one’s a private detective lawyer.

“Yeah,” I tell them while tossing back my head and laughing maniacally. On the inside. On my outside, I just smile and say, “Being a writer is the best.”

Do you have your own story where you friends razz you about YOUR career? Have you ever taken a shot at writing novels and want to share your pain/success/tragedy? Are you the one who once said “Being a writer is easy—it’s like riding a bike. . . except the bike is on fire, you’re on fire, everything is on fire, and you’re in hell!”?

If so, then by all means, rush to your nearest computer and zip off an email to me with the details tout de suite. I’ll be waiting on the other end of Ryandoesntreademail@scenesarasota.com. Use a first-rate subject line like “stuff” or “huh” to ensure prompt attention.