I resent Carrie Bradshaw

I've been a fan of Sex and the City since the show debuted. I loved it. I even loved the movie although it was a bit depressing, and if I had been Carrie Bradshaw's gal pal, I never would have let her marry Mr. Big. It took him six years to commit to her fully and four more to propose. If it takes a man ten years to determine that you're the woman for him, you most likely aren't the woman for him. The average income for a professional writer i.e. someone who doesn't teach or have another job is $25,000-$60,000. So unless Ms.Bradshaw moonlights as J.K. Rowling or Stephen King she is conservatively about a half million dollars in credit card debt, and owns a million dollar apartment in Manhattan. She wrote three books, but they were breezy little dating memoirs that likely sold in the neighborhood of 20,000 copies. A writer makes a little less than a dollar per copy sold and 10%-15% goes to their agent. John Irving sold 3 times that number of books and didn't quit his job teaching out of fear that his children would starve. She also was a weekly columnist in a modest circulation newspaper. The real money in newspapers is in syndication. She wasn't syndicated. One paper carried her byline. I'm a columnist in a modest circulation newspaper. I'm considering taking a part-time job as a weed dealer. I'm not going to. But if I did, and i got caught, the judge would understand the financial need. Her last revenue stream is the occasional article in Vogue. Now don't get me wrong, Vogue is one sweet gig. It's a magazine that you can't even pitch articles to unless your agent is a rock star and you're a stud in your chosen area of expertise. But they only pay a freelancer $5000 an article. Carrie Bradshaw might be wearing those high heeled shoes because she's got a second career as a high priced call girl.
I understand that fantasy is fantasy. That a certain suspension of belief is necessary for entertainment purposes. But I resent the way she makes the life of a writer look easy and glamorous. I assure it's not. I'm a freelance writer. And I spend most of my day doing commercial writing to subsidize my dream of writing creatively. It's a minimum of 12 hours a day spent at my desk, and another 4 hours a day looking for more work. Novelists slave day and night for years to churn out books. Non-fiction writers barely break even on their books because of the research costs. The life of a writer is spent alone in a world that is largely self-contained and self-created. It's not ten minutes a week spent dashing off 500 words on the guy you're sleeping with. At least not unless you're looking to be one of those homeless people who insist on reciting you their poetry so they don't feel like its charity when you give them $5. The life of a professional writer is 360 days a year wearing sweatpants and 5 days year being wined and dined and congratulated on the brilliance of what you wrote. It's a fulfilling life full of intellectual challenge. It's great. But it isn't glamorous. Carrie Bradshaw is clearly dealing weed. That show is about a weed dealer.