If I told you I was going to pursue a job that offered virtually no money, could occasionally feel like mental torture, and have the ability to ruin me emotionally for days on end, but I’d be happy, what would you think?
Writing is more than that but it feels like a grey-sky filled plod from time to time. Then after struggling in the dark you see a ray a sunshine, for a minute, and its enough to keep going.
Recently I’ve has two big wins in the writing realm. I’ll share more on them in later posts but I cannot help the fact that writing looks more like the pie chart below (borrowed from Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work)
So, why do I keep writing?
That is an excellent question. For me, I guess I enjoy it. Yes, even the torture.
I’m not a Navy Seal or professional athlete but I think I get them now more than I did before writing got difficult. It’s not about the trials its about what comes after. And for me that pay off is worth the effort in the end.
How about you? Why do you write or pursue your dream?
PART-TIME NOVEL 
I love the diagram. I might steal it to use at the Breathe workshop I’m doing– would that be okay?
And I don’t know why I do this, frankly. Money=terrible. Mental strain=terrible. Time sucker=terrible.
But what else am I going to do with all those words stuck in my head?
Steal away! I am also doing a workshop at Breathe!
I love the quote from the opening of Moby Dick – “when I am in the mood of knocking people’s hat’s off and involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses…I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as possible.” For me the sea = the writing life.
What I love about the opening of Moby Dick is that Ismael’s retreat is not one of peace but battle and strife and struggle.
I think that’s maybe why people stare and blink slowly when we writers say “I’m a writer”. It is always considered the “non-job”, the phase we need to grow out of and stop wasting time with. I really lol’d at that diagram 😀
I write because the stories take up too much space in my mind and I cannot concentrate or do anything else until they are out. I write because reality can be so dull at times, compared to the worlds I create 😀