Top 10 Reasons Writing Is the Best Job Ever

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We are standing and cheering and applauding like mad! We love it when our dear friends have a mad success! Yay for Liz Milliron—who we know as Mary Sutton—whose second book, HEAVEN HAS NO RAGE,  is now on the shelves!

And she has, with her own special style of optimism, figured out the good news about being a writer. PERFECT for a Friday morning!  Welcome, darling Mary/Liz! And hurray!

Top 10 Reasons I Think Writing Is the Best Job Ever!

by Liz Milliron

Thanks so much Reds for having me back! I visit every morning for my JRW “fix” so being here is a true honor.

There are any number of memes out there that are variants on a theme. “Be a writer, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.” But now that my second book, Heaven Has No Rage, is out in the wild, I can say this with confidence.

Being a writer is the best job I’ve had (okay, aside from wife and mother).

Oh sure. There are days when I wonder, “Why did I do this?” Usually it’s those days when I’m pummeling my brain trying to come up with yet another character name that fits impossibly strict limits – must not start with J, S, A, T, B; be three-syllables; cannot end with Y; and cannot be a famous person. (Do it. I dare you.)

But other days, well, I truly believe sitting with a cup of tea, putting words on a screen, and getting paid to do it really should be illegal because no person should have this much fun.

So here are my Top 10 Reasons I Think Writing Is the Best Job Ever.

10. Staying in your pajamas and not showering until 10am is not “being lazy.” This is your new work uniform.

9. Chocolate, wine, and caffeine are major food groups.

8. Staring off into space is no longer “being lazy” or “tuning out.” You’re resolving plot problems.

7. Research is so much more fun than it was in college. (The downside is that my Google search history is sure to have put my name on some kind of watchlist. No, seriously, I’m a writer, see I have books and everything!)

6. You have a built-in excuse to avoid dreadfully dull social engagements. “I’d love to come watch your fourth-cousin-twice-removed’s slideshow of his root canal surgery, but I can’t. I’m on deadline.”

5. Similar to #6, you have a built-in excuse for memory lapses. “Oh, were we supposed to meet Great Aunt Mabel for her black-berry jam making marathon? It slipped my mind. Sorry, I’m on deadline.” (Note: Be careful with this one. Failure to be at your oldest child’s first violin solo concert will probably cost you valuable support when you really do need to be left alone. Exercise caution.)

4. Killing someone in fiction is just as therapeutic, and a whole lot less expensive, than psychotherapy.

3. Eavesdropping is no longer a social faux pas. It’s research!

2. Taking that trip to England (or France, or Italy, or Ireland) may now qualify as research if you plan to write a book set there.

1. And the best thing about being a writer – you get to hang out with some of the coolest people on the planet: other writers and readers!

HANK: Love this so much! Reds and readers, what are the real best reasons about why you love what YOU do?

About HEAVEN HAS NO RAGE

State Trooper Jim Duncan's quiet overnight shift turns deadly when fire destroys a ski lodge at a local resort and the first responders find a man's body inside. What starts as a suspicious accident quickly becomes sinister when the autopsy proves the victim is not the man who rented the cabin. Jim’s left with three questions. Who is John Doe? Why was he at the ski lodge? And who hated him enough to kill him?

Assistant Public Defender Sally Castle, still reeling after the events of several months ago, tries to bury her feelings of guilt and fear in her work. When an anonymous note from a secret admirer arrives at the courthouse, she brushes it off as an empty threat. As the missives, each one darker than the last, continue to arrive at her office as well as her home, Sally’s forced to review all the possibilities. Is the letter-writer a person from her legal past? Or is the threat closer to home?

As the questions multiply, Jim and Sally are thrown into a race to find a murderer as well as a stalker...before Sally ends up facing more than an unwanted pen pal.

Liz Milliron is the author of The Laurel Highlands Mysteries series about a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County assistant public defender in the scenic Laurel Highlands. The first in the series, Root of All Evil, was released in August, 2018. Liz’s short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies, including Murder Most Historical and the Anthony-award-winning Blood on the Bayou. She is a past president of the Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime, as well as a member of Pennwriters and International Thriller Writers. She lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband, two teens, and a retired-racer greyhound.