Writers Write

Photo: William Shakespeare's likeness on his Crypt's Monument


I have to face the harsh truth that I am not writing as often as I should be.  There are many reasons for this, mostly the fact that I am tired upon coming home in my attempt to pay The Man.  And often I have to comtinue the job at home.  This weekend, after I was totally useless yesterday with a migraine or a sinus headache, I had just one day (today) to do a lot more work for the job, which I did do.  I was so exhausted Friday that I realized I had been essentially a walking zombie all week long.  I awoke Saturday with a start, thinking I was very late to my job, and then I awoke a short time later with a massive headache that only improved, slightly, when I joined friends for a nice dinner.  Then I got home, too tired and headachy, to do any writing.  I have read a lot, but that is small consolation.

I love my job, but it is draining, and after I get home late...Well, I won't preach to the choir here.  If you follow this blog at all, then you're probably a writer as well.  And if that's the case, you already know what I'm saying.  And I don't have a huge family, either.  I just can't imagine.  If I'm not getting any writing done now...

And yet I also know that, despite how these obstacles seem like reasons, they're not--they're excuses.  Writers write, bottom line, and I haven't been as much as I should.  The 6 novels aren't going to write themselves, right?  If you're a writer, you've heard the stories:

J.K. Rowling would wake at 4 a.m. to start writing before she had to be mommy to her kids in the morning, then write while they were in school, then mommy her kids again until they went to bed, and then write until she fell unconscious, just to wake up at 4 a.m. to do it all over again.

Stephen King would teach during the day, work at a laundry press at night, and wrote consistently anyway, and not in an office, either.  His office was a typewriter on his lap.  I guess weekends, and during the nights he didn't work part-time at the laundry.

I'm banging my head against the wall sometimes because I don't know where else the time would come from.  I don't watch much television at all--just House and the occasional football game.  I read a lot, but writers have to do that, and I won't stop that.  I don't read excessively, to the point of escaping.  I had to do my laundry, and I had to re-arrange the pantry, and I had to write down what was in the pantry, and I ended up doing about 4 loads of laundry, and I only read about 50 pages today of the book, and I read a couple of sections of the paper--and here we are.  Not much writing done today, at all.  I had to find the extra time, in fact, to do the blog entries, including this one.

I know that the only answer is, damn it, find the time and just do it.  I know this.  I know that I just have to write for a few hours a day, minimum, and just do it.  As I mentioned in another entry awhile ago, that's the only answer--just do it.  Find the time.  Find a way.  Just do it.

I'm tryin', man.  I'm tryin'.