Over and over again, when talking to writers, they say things like “I write because I have to”. Is that true?
Well, to a great extent it is. Not that I have to write, as such, but that life is so much easier and saner when I’m writing than when I’m not. I sleep at night, for one, and I don’t dream of stories. (It’s actually normal for me to dream of stories, with people I never heard of, yes, particularly if I’ve been in a long, dry writing spell.)
Unfortunately that doesn’t mean writing is easy. Heck, even when I’m DRIVEN on a book, as I seem to be on Darkship Renegades which is entirely in my head save for minor word changes and tweaking, it’s still not easy to write.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, there is this almost euphoric feeling of writing when I’m completely immersed in the book and the words are flowing and the story is playing itself out – seemingly – all around me. We haven’t yet invented the tech to replicate that feeling with someone else’s stories, and it’s glorious. BUT that feeling requires silence and time and a certain state of mind.
It’s all too easy to snuff out the writing light. Not just with me, but with all my friends, I’ve noted that illness, stress, worry about a family member, worry about an upcoming trip (I’ve mentioned I hate flying, right?), disruptions in the household (say, painting a room or moving stuff around) all of this costs writing time all out of proportion with what time the thing takes, objectively.
A lot of writers start their career when the kids leave the house or when they retire. I think I’d have done that, given the option. As is, looking back over the last ten years, it’s astonishing how much I manage to get written around the edges, even if at times it requires me to go to a hotel for a couple of weeks to finish books.
Yeah, our lawn is dead, our fence needs painting, our house inside needs painting too, and I have to only clean once a week – I feel guilty about all of these. OTOH I know what I’d think if I could meet with one of my favorite dead authors and he told me that he’d written ten fewer books so he could keep a lovely lawn.
This of course is a roundabout way of saying the novel(s) aren’t done. Which means I bought three batteries for my laptop, which I’ll charge before leaving on Friday. I wonder if the people next to me will find Athena very odd…
According To Hoyt 
Writer Andrew Klavan touches on this topic today at his blog, with this quote from Playwright David Mamet:
“A writer’s life is lived, and, I think, must be lived, in solitude. For it is a dialogue with one’s own thoughts and, often, a dialogue about one’s own thoughts; and the corrosive nature of this struggle is often unpleasant, devouring one’s time and weakening one’s capacity for simple human interaction. This is a minuscule price to pay for the privilege of earning one’s living as an artist; but the price, though small (if it is a price, and not, rather, an attribute), unfits the writer, or, at least, unfitted me, for participation in a wider society. I need to be alone.”
http://www.andrewklavan.com/2011/05/23/a-writers-life-and-wife/
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