Writing is not easy. It's not just picking up a pen and paper and becoming a bestseller. It's not just having a dream,writing a book and selling it on your eighth query.
Writing is having so many characters in your head you think your going to go crazy. It's having that drive to create something of worth and working your behind off to get it. It's learning the craft while trying to get blood to come out of your forehead. Its going back to school if you have the opportunity and learning the language all over again.
Writing is not like any other job in the universe. Well writing and performing music and creating art may be close. You write until your forehead bleeds taking in no sallary for your efforts and then spend your own money sending your work out only to be rejected repeatedly. It takes most writers somewhere around five years to get to the point of being accepted. FIVE YEARS! Meanwhile your family has written you of as a heritic, your spouse thinks your completely crazy and your kids have subsisted on cold cereal and sandwitches for thier daily nutrition.
While writing is a solitary activity, it is something we writers don't do alone. We crave validation, we need to have someone tell us that that last scene was really great, that our plots are awesome, that we'll get through that writers block, that we have value as a creative person. That that blood on the page, straight from our foreheads, is worth the pain.
I am a writer, I have something of value within me, I am a creator of worlds and people, I have worked hard to get where I am.
I didn't chose this as a profession the muse chose me by creating amazing stories in my head. I must bow to the creative urge or I will go insane. I must write because it is the source of creative outlet in me that keeps me sane and happy.
I am a writer.
6 comments:
Yes you are!!!!! You put this perfectly!
I like this post very much! You have expressed so much in so little words! I am very thankful i get to be in such a fantastic writer's group that can help me finally submit something worth reading. I too, like you have a million ideas in my head, characters, plot ideas, fantasies yet to be lived out...
So thankful for my writer's group this Thanksgiving. I think it is time for an honest post on my blog. Something raw and from the heart. How I really feel about writing. Because I am so glad I finally got back to it. I need writing to subsist in my life. Writing empowers me. I feel lifted to a higher level when I really get going. I just wish there wasn't so much editing involved, DARNIT. It is such a MOOD breaker, you know? I'll get better. I will. Count on it. I already have three book reviews lined up already. You have to start somewhere right?
EEK. That is I am glad I finalyl got back INTO writing. Grrr. Sorry for the mistakes...
Don't know how I couldn't find your blog before now. Just wanted to tell you "Hi!" and agree with everyone else here. You're a writer. Now if only that muse would let up on the whipping.
I found myself nodding my head and saying "YES" more than once through reading this. You ARE a writer, Michelle. No doubt about it.
Five years? Shoot. I knew I was doing something wrong. Can I erase about five years? That might put me in the time limit! ;) At least from the time that I feel I finally got serious about writing!
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