Recently, I had the good fortune to have cause to write the following to a friend in thank you to placing my site as a link for writers on her message board. Perhaps it will be useful to you, too....

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THE WRITING LIFE

I wish you all the very, very best with your writing endeavors. It is a long road once embarked upon... one that the true ones travel from that first step onto the gravel to the later days when they seem to slide the super-highways... Yet, each new project is like taking that very first step again... the stones pierce the sole and you wince as you tentatively move forward... Yet, you know you are "alive" and on the journey once more... and you welcome the stones... and the heat on the pavement as you get there... and some days you even roll down the windows `cause now you're cruisin' and you let the wind blow past you... and you feel the wind and even though it is blowing past you... it takes you forward, uncannily giving you force in the opposite direction to its movement... until... suddenly, almost without knowing how you got there... you type The End... And then you rest... and wait... for another invitation to step on the road... a word in hand... and you both eagerly and fearfully anticipate the next journey and the feel of a stone piercing your soul/sole... either will do and perhaps I mean both.... All good to you... 

In order to write well and consistently and to be true to it one must give up things. In some cases this entails giving up a lot of personal pleasure, a so-called normal life-style. In some respects, it requires becoming in sync with a type of life much like that of an Olympic athlete in training. But for the true writer, this is for your whole life, not just eight or ten years in the late teens and twenties. It is something that is always there, with you, no matter where you go or what you do (see my short stories The Writer and the Whore and, to an extent, Lucky). So, the writer, if he or she is serious about being a writer, must then make choices, sacrifices if you will, in order to earn a living, have a regular consistent time to write, and also to have the friendships and close relationships that meet the writer's need(s) for intimacy. And here, I do not mean just the physical need for intimacy, but the more important one. This being that mysterious spiritual connection that sometimes occurs between two people, and often, in truly intimate encounters even when sex is not part of the scenario. And then there is the issue of having children, and child raising, and household and family demands which must be met in order to sustain oneself, or to do one's share in a family scenario. There are many parts of existence that the writer, truly, may not care a great deal about, yet must partake in, or contribute to, in order to be part of the world. Many conflicts can develop. These can be inner conflicts, as well as conflicts with the agendas of those one is surrounded with..., often by choice.

Then once some acclaim is attained, the writer can confront a certain amount of jealousy, and a change in the way some people, sometimes many people, in one's circle relate to her or him. In a way, there is almost an intimidation factor... And really, you are no different, than before.

Yet, because you are now part of a world foreign to most, it and you become an unknown, and therefore, I think on some level frightening. Thus..., it is often hard to relate to others in a real true meaningful way. New acquaintances may only see the writer, or some perceived mystique about that which is nothing more than a perception.. The mystique, the glamour doesn't really exist. Writing is simply very time consuming and a lot of hard work. The true writer does his or her work. Period. Just like a gardener gardens. And however big the work may or not be in the eyes of others..., to the writer it is his dear rose garden. A garden he is proud of, has toiled over, and cherishes.. Then too, as far as family and friends go, it is often hard for them to realize that you have to go and sit down at your machine and do your work, and it is not something that you can just kind of squeeze in whenever they don't want or need you.

So... for those writers like myself who have always earned their living in another occupation..., it is a life that, in a way, has two jobs. You've got a second job... writing. And you have to show up for work. Writing. Just like you do for any other job. A lot of this is hard for non-writers/non-creatives to understand. Truly. Or to accept in family or relationships. Yet, how many spouses or friends of brain surgeons would expect the surgeon to not go to surgery some morning because the spouse or friend would rather the surgeon went golfing with them... or whatever... Silly of course... But the true writer must contend with this either overtly or covertly.

In the early stages of the writer's career there are always the doubts from self or others as to the validity of the work or the dream. Is it all a fantasy? Do you really have it, you wonder? And of course others do to... It's a tough struggle emotionally to be a writer... no matter how successful commercially or in the public's or writer's eye. And I am not saying this to try to mystify it, glamorize it, or make it bigger than it is... What I am saying is simply reality.

And also..., writing is not something you do with others. Unlike pretty well any other occupation or passion, you write totally alone. So... all of those hours spent writing, you spend in total isolation from others. And I think from a social standpoint, even working in a car wash would be better for one's psyche. I think the need and nature of the writer's craft... the solitude... the aloneness..., both required as part of the creative process, and the actual solitary act of writing itself... can play havoc with the writer's psyche... Yet the true writer has no choice really... The true writer or artist is born that way... This who she is. Who he is. Simple as that.

So there is not a choice... here... really... for the true writer artist... The art, in this case the writing is as much a part of the true writer’s existence as his or her central nervous system. It is there. Real. Unavoidable. And a very integral part of the writer’s entire functioning. And in the truest of cases a very integral part of the writer’s being.

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