I write all the time
I don’t mean all the blabbery on social media. I’m talking real writing — at least by my definition of “real”.
Stories. I stopped writing them a long time ago but now I do again. Why? Don’t know. I write the occasional poem. I’m no poet, believe me. I journal and have done so since I was a kid. I wrote my first novel-length manuscript nearly 40 years ago and nowadays I’ve always got a novel in the works. Two at this time, with a third that I’m poking at. I write scenes for what I’m working on or for no reason at all. I jot down ideas about character motivation. Sometimes I just spew words that have to come out and because I don’t know what I’ll do with them I email them to myself and then forget about them. In November I commit to NaNoWriMo and drive myself crazy keeping up. I wake up in the night and record my dreams. I scribble phrases, sentences, paragraphs, scenes on scraps of paper or I text them to myself.
It’s kind of embarrassing, actually.
I mean, if I was a published author — which I am not, having just today received yet another story rejection — what I write would be Important. It’d be Meaningful. Significant. It would Matter.
But I’m just another wannabe writer. Um. By wannabe I don’t mean I’ve never been paid to write, since that’s how I earned my living for the past two decades. I mean I want to get paid for writing what I want to write, and for me that’s fiction. In other words, I don’t want to write about what’s out there but what’s in here. In me.
So yeah. I have this burning desire to be paid for writing what I want to write, not what somebody else wishes they could write but they can’t so they hire me to do it.
I want to make stuff up. To transform possibilities into reality by writing them. That’s a kind of magic that has always attracted me.
I love writing. Good thing, because I have to do it.
I love writing but I have to do it? Hah! That’s kind of like saying I love being high and oh, by the way, I’ll go into withdrawal without that drug or drink. Ahem. So what. I have nothing against drugs or alcohol (but remember — don’t drink and drive, my friends).
I love writing. I love the process and challenge of making a direct connection between the inside of my head and the outside not-me world. I seek to capture the words that express precisely what’s percolating in my brain. I call it flavor — the fullness of what I’m trying to convey. Not just description but the wholeness of it. When it’s good it’s as close to psychic sharing as I can get. That quality of writing gives me the shivers.
It’s a kind of magic, that, and I love letting that power flow through me.
But whoa — just like a drug addict I need more. I can’t just write in the dark. I can’t just write for me. I’m compelled to wreck the sublime joy of capturing my inner imaginings by exposing the writing — and myself — to the world. As scary as it is, I have to risk it.
Because oh yeah, I need the audience. I crave applause. I want outside validation that my writing is doing what I want it to do.
I wanna get paid
And there’s the rub, isn’t it? I want to get paid for what I create — in today’s world, payment being the functional mark of approval. So it’s not just about writing for myself, is it? I have to write stuff other people want to read.
Do I write for me or do I write for you?
Obviously… the answer is yes.
PS You can become a patron of mine, yes you can! A buck a month will get ‘er done!
