Sometimes I think writers are granted an excuse from the normal expectations of life. In some ways it’s an excuse, and in other ways it may be seen as a curse. In order to be a writer, you have to actually write. Most writers don’t start off getting paid to do that, so you have to do something else to pay the bills until you can work your way up to supporting yourself with your chicken scratch. Most never make it. The result is that writing is something you have to make time for. You sacrifice things like a social life in order to be a writer. You have to come home from your day job and sit down and pound out a pile of words every night, just so you can hope to improve and some day have something you call yours. I’ve never really thought about that sacrifice before.
In some ways I’ve let this collection of online thoughts be my writing for the past few years. And in some ways it has been. Every few months I’ll pound something out here that will end up being the rough draft for something else. But notice the term “every few months.” If that’s as often as I’m doing some serious writing, I should really give up on my dream of being one of them paid writers. In some ways this collection of thoughts could be seen as a sacrifice. I’ve spend twenty minutes a day, not quite every day, for the last three years putting these thoughts together. I never edit them. And often I don’t go back to them to pull anything out. Not much of a sacrifice. That’s like offering your toe nail clippings when spilt blood is required.
So lately I’ve been thinking that I need to get serious about writing. I need to actually do some writing. I need to stop sitting on my butt watching TV every other night when I could be writing. And it’s not that I’m a big TV watcher. There’s probably three or four TV shows I watch on a regular basis. If you add it up it’s about four hours of TV watching per week. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but imagine if that was four more hours of writing every week.
Sometimes I think writers and artistic people just like to sound all sacrificial and pompous. Look at me, giving up something for the sake of my high artsy-fartsy calling in life. My wife would probably make fun of me if I told her I wasn’t going to watch Judging Amy tonight because I want to be a professional writer. I should make fun of myself for that. But at the same time, there’s a certain amount of work and sacrifice that needs to be done if I want to call myself a writer. It’s not about being professional or being famous, or even making a buck (although that’s always nice).
And the beautiful thing is that if you’re really honest about wanting to be a writer, it’s not a sacrifice. If I really want to be a writer, then I should be writing rather than watching Seventh Heaven. I should enjoy writing, not see it as a load of work I have to do in my evenings to work my way into the publishing world. That’s a crock. That’s the wrong motives. That’s focusing on what writing gets me, and sucking it up so I can get there. I imagine most true writers love the writing part, and aren’t too thrilled about the professional world of writers. If I really love writing, I wouldn’t bitch and moan about spending my evening writing. And I hope I’m not doing that.
You know you’re doing what you love to do when you do it even though you’re not on the clock. If you’d volunteer to do your day job, then you’re a lucky bastard. I’d like to be a lucky bastard someday.