Mathain
December 25th, 2005, 12:52 AM
In just a short while, it'll be Christmas and Hanukka, and like many of you I'll be celebrating with family. The usual gamut of gift-giving, dinners with relatives, bagging up mounds of wrapping paper that has collected in drifts in the corners of every room, washing countless dishes, duct taping the kids down after they've snagged too many red and green M&Ms... all the usual hullabaloo of the holidays.
Then, when it's all settled down, when the kids are tucked away with their piles of new dolls and teddy bears, I'll do what I do every year, every day. I'll retreat to the comfortable climes of the laptop, and I'll push away those stray thoughts of holiday cheer, and I'll begin writing.
I see writing as more than a passion, more than an occasional hobby. I approach writing as my second job, just like any other second job, except there's no holiday pay or weekends off or health insurance. I work harder at my second job than I do at my first, because I love doing it. Love and passion are what drive me to perform... but treating it as a job pushes me back into the seat every single day, even though everyday distractions try to keep me away.
For many would-be writers, it is the distractions that keep them from following their passion. It becomes all too easy to find excuses NOT to write - it's always the first thing to go when garden variety life rears its head. Putting in overtime at the day job? No time to write. Driveway needs snowblowing, sidewalk needs salting? There goes the strength to write. Fighting with the spouse over bills and the way the dog sheds too much and who's turn is it to mop the floor and dammit, those bathroom tiles aren't going to lay themselves? Bam, there goes writing.
But if you are serious about becoming a writer, you must steal the moments to write from the day, stealth-like if you must, a thief in the night snatching precious gem minutes from the monolithic Everyday Life. Wake half an hour early to scribble in a notebook while chugging your morning coffee. Be ruthless! Steal time from your day job - write on your lunch break, in boring meetings, between customers at the registers! If you are a writer, you will make the time to write, no matter what obstacles rise before you. Become a guerrilla writer if you must, but WRITE. Write hard, write fast, and never take a day off.
Embrace your passion. The more you write, the more often you write, the better you will become.
Merry holidays, SFF World writers!
Then, when it's all settled down, when the kids are tucked away with their piles of new dolls and teddy bears, I'll do what I do every year, every day. I'll retreat to the comfortable climes of the laptop, and I'll push away those stray thoughts of holiday cheer, and I'll begin writing.
I see writing as more than a passion, more than an occasional hobby. I approach writing as my second job, just like any other second job, except there's no holiday pay or weekends off or health insurance. I work harder at my second job than I do at my first, because I love doing it. Love and passion are what drive me to perform... but treating it as a job pushes me back into the seat every single day, even though everyday distractions try to keep me away.
For many would-be writers, it is the distractions that keep them from following their passion. It becomes all too easy to find excuses NOT to write - it's always the first thing to go when garden variety life rears its head. Putting in overtime at the day job? No time to write. Driveway needs snowblowing, sidewalk needs salting? There goes the strength to write. Fighting with the spouse over bills and the way the dog sheds too much and who's turn is it to mop the floor and dammit, those bathroom tiles aren't going to lay themselves? Bam, there goes writing.
But if you are serious about becoming a writer, you must steal the moments to write from the day, stealth-like if you must, a thief in the night snatching precious gem minutes from the monolithic Everyday Life. Wake half an hour early to scribble in a notebook while chugging your morning coffee. Be ruthless! Steal time from your day job - write on your lunch break, in boring meetings, between customers at the registers! If you are a writer, you will make the time to write, no matter what obstacles rise before you. Become a guerrilla writer if you must, but WRITE. Write hard, write fast, and never take a day off.
Embrace your passion. The more you write, the more often you write, the better you will become.
Merry holidays, SFF World writers!