Bon Jour, mes amis!
I’m still fully committed to my schedule of erratic blog posts this summer, but I did want to share one small thought with you.
As I may have mentioned -- many times, while your eyes glazed over – I love the sport of cycling, and in the world of cycling, July is all about the Tour de France. Someday I’m actually going to get over there and ring my cow bell along the roadside of the Alpe d’Huez with a million drunk Dutch fans who’ve painted their entire bodies orange and run alongside the cyclists wearing little more than a Speedo, but for now I must watch Le Tour on TV.
So I’m watching yesterday’s stage, and I realize something about being a writer than hadn’t occurred to me before, and here it is: Writing as a profession is emotionally punishing, mentally taxing, and really, really bloody hard and all that, but in terms of your physical safety? Like, the chance that you’ll get injured on the job? Writing couldn’t be better.
Take a look at this video. This is what a bad day at the office looks like for a professional cyclist. (The audio is in Flemish, but you’ll get the idea what he’s saying)
Say what you will about our struggle to create and the endless waiting we do and the pain of rejection – at the end of the day, the chances of getting hit by a TV crew covering you while you’re working is pretty much negative 100 percent.
So take heart in knowing that no matter what happens this week while you’re writing, you’re probably not going to get pitched into a barbed wire cow fence.
There. Doesn’t that make you feel much better?
