09.05.08
Journey-people
FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING
We all know that when you go somewhere, you take a journey.
What’s less known is that word’s relationship to a day’s work. Journey comes from the Old French journee, a word that refers to the course of a day, a day’s travel or a day’s work. That word derives from the Latin word diurnum, or “daily portion.”
A journeyman is someone with a skill, who works for another person. It comes from journey, in the sense of “a day’s work,” combined with “man” — so named because the journeyman was no longer bound by indentures but was paid for the day. He was able to decide where he worked … and to keep his wages … and in that sense, he was free.
Some synonyms expert, artist, craftsman, artisan and everything from Renaissance man, illuminati and genius to handyman and technician.
I’ve written before about what it means to be a self-employed writer. Not a lot of security … and I’ve learned not to look too far down the road, to sock my earnings into savings and don’t spend any more than I have to, and enjoy the scaled-down pleasures of hiking over plane trips to exotic islands.
Yet in the 13 years I’ve worked for myself, I have come to appreciate the idea of being a journeyman (journeygal? journeyperson?). I have worked plenty of nights and weekends, even once stayed up all night to write a script for someone on short notice.
Yet though I’m meeting someone’s requirements or requests, I do so by my own choice. Maybe it’s fear of letting someone down … maybe it’s my inner sense of perfection … I just don’t like failure.
The trick is applying these standards to my own personal writing. That’s harder to do. While it’s one thing to work for someone else, with the promise of a day’s pay for a day’s work … when writing a novel, there’s no promise … no pay, at least not for years … and no one setting a deadline.
