I just finished reading John Scalzi’s Your Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop. Scalzi is a professional writer.  He writes for money. He makes enough of the stuff to feed his family, own a home, and to top it all off he is not the least bit ashamed of it. In fact, not only is he not ashamed, he has written a book about his experience.

You’re Not Fooling Anyone is a collection of entries from Scalzi’s blog “Whatever“. Curated and collated into a narrative on the life of professional writer, the book reads as part biography, part exposé, and part philosophical musings on the writing life.

Scalzi started his professional writing career in the early 90’s as a film critic and columnist, then made the transition to the brave new world of the internet as a writer and editor for AOL.  He is a pioneer of the blog. He started his blog Whatever in 1998 and it is still going, making it one of longest running blogs on the internet. In 2005, he used his blog to serialize his first science fiction novel Old Man’s War, attracting the notice of Tor Books who published it.  He has published gobs of books since then, won some fancy awards, and established himself as name in the science fiction world. He also works as a freelance writer, editor and marketing consultant for businesses, some of them large and well known. John Scalzi was, and is, a writing machine. He boasts (and I would too) that a total of 5,000 words a day is not unusual for him.

I came to learn about John Scalzi through Twitter.  I followed him after reading his replies on some other folks I followed, all of whom were of the sci-fi/geek persuasion.  I liked his humor and the regularly proffered photos of his cats.  I think a year or more passed until I finally read one of his books, Old Man’s War.  I liked it well enough, and someday plan on reading one of his newer books to compare it to this first one, because I am interested to see how someone grows as a writer.

I still haven’t gotten around to reading another one of his books, at least until this one.  I decided to go back to school to finish off my bachelor’s degree after many years. All my reading for the past two years has been mandated by my instructors.  However, I just finished my degree two weeks ago and I’m now reading books I get to choose. Woo-hoo!

I picked You’re Not Fooling Anyone because I want to be a writer AND make money at it. I thought it would be good to read the experience of someone who has done that. Like Scalzi mentions in his book, I also noticed that writing was something that was relatively easy for me when it seemed hard for others. He made the choice early on to make it his career, since he didn’t feel qualified for much else other than asking if you want fries with that. I was much slower on the uptake. I wish I had his insight when I was young.

Scalzi is not romantic about the writer’s life.  He is practical with just the right touch of optimistic cynicism. I found a lot that I could relate to.  I am not opposed to making money off of art. Some artists in all mediums, not just writing, feel that if you make money from your creative work it somehow cheapens it. I am not one of those people. Scalzi chose the genre of his first novel Old Man’s War, when he walked into a bookstore and saw that the military sci-fi was the largest sub-section of the sci-fi shelves.  He has gotten some crap for that, but as he put it, he wanted to increase his chance of being published. It seemed working in a sub-genre that was being published a lot was a smart move.

At my day job I put numbers into spreadsheets. It is not glamorous.  It is not interesting to me. In fact, having an accounting type job was always my greatest nightmare.  It’s what my mom did.  I was never good at math. If it wasn’t for Microsoft Excel, I wouldn’t have a job. Without it I would have been fired long ago. I suck at math. I always wanted to do something “creative”. I still want to do something creative. I got sucked into this job by accident.  I was only supposed to be temping three weeks while someone was on vacation.  Somehow it has been sixteen years.  I was lured into the van by the man with the relatively good pay and health benefits.

Before this job I worked retail and food service. I dealt with cranky customers, grease, long hours of standing, achy feet, and all for low pay. If I could make money from writing, something I’m talented at, something that allows me to use my creative brain, I would be happy as a clam. I’ve made money doing shitty jobs. Why not make money doing something I like. I am not going to look down on doing art, even corporate mandated, commercially marketable art, for money. Bring on the cold hard cash baby. Let me roll around in it a while. Then I can see how cheapened I feel.

Scalzi points out that a lot of his income is from doing writing and editing for businesses. He makes a point to mention several times that he does writing as a job, to help his clients meet their goals,and he does it to support his family.  He minimizes his ego to put the client first, makes himself easy to work with, and therefore more likely to get repeated contracts and referrals. His says science fiction novels bring in income, but it is not his main source.  I suspect this may have changed by now.  Most of the “Whatever” entries that make up You’re Not Fooling Anyone are from the mid-2000’s. There has been almost ten years of new work since then. I would love for him to update this book with his latest insights and experiences.

Even though the book is dated in this respect, I believe most of his advice is still applicable.  I am really motivated by his recommendation that writers have an online presence. Before reading this book, I was already planning on using this website as both writing practice and portfolio.  I am even more invested in this idea now.  I plan on publishing excerpts from my novel in progress (when they are polished up a bit more), as well as some of the comic ideas I am working on.

I suspect some people might find his blunt assessments of the writer’s world cynical and a buzzkill to their fantasies of the life of an artist.  He is not particularly kind to those who feel that their writing is a precious higher calling.  Luckily I don’t feel that way.  I found this book inspiring in its practically, and I’ve always liked his snarky humor. Now if he could just update it with tidbits from the last ten years, and put in several pictures of his cats, I could give it a higher rating. However, I still recommend it strongly.

Rated: 4 out of 5 spilled lattes.