Actually, I think writing is harder than work.
And, there's no minimum wage.
I began thinking of writing that way earlier this year. But on Monday night, I attended a Martin Cruz Smith book signing at the St. Louis County Library on Lindberg. Tatiana is the latest Arkady Renko novel. I have read all his Renko books. I think the author does a great job capturing the spirit of Russia. Tatiana served up another good dose of Moscow and a few other interesting spots.
During the Q&A someone asked Mr. Smith if he had a co-author on Tatiana. He said he did. He said he had Parkinsons, and that he could no longer manage his typewriter, so his coauthor was his wife. He'd dictate. She'd type. He related that there were testy times. He cited the sentence, "He opened the door."
As he's thinking about the story and the character, he changed it to "He had trouble opening the door."
Then he decided to change it to, "He had no difficulty opening the door." And then he had the character open the door but not enter the room. At that point, the typist went to get a cup of tea.
Kind of put writing as work into a new perspective for me.