I write when the spirit moves me.
Or, when the bank account looks low. That as well. And lately, that has driven my pen more than my spirit has.
I’m contractually obligated to produce between ten and eleven columns a week for various places. And they all have specific topic requirements.
That’s 2550 column or blog posts I’ve written in the last six years that had to be about one certain topic or another.
Do what you love
And I tell myself that I’m lucky to have a job where I get to do what I love. And that’s true. I love that I get to write about these things that I’m either interested in or have done research on.
But I confess that, with a lot of new things happening in my life, the love of my working life has become something I only get to see on dates when it used to be what I did the minute my columns were done.
Maybe …
Okay, maybe I’m getting old, tired, slow. Maybe I’ve lost interest, though I can’t see how that could be possible. Maybe I’ve grown more interested in other things, and since I have ADHD I can assure you that would be a possibility.
But here’s a funny thing.
I feel bad!
I feel really bad for my characters. I fell like I’ve left them in the lurch. I mean, I like them, I wouldn’t have written about them if I didn’t.
And yet, these days, I get my “Work” work done and I move on to other “work” work, laundry or dishes or jobs I’ve contracted to do and I tell myself I’ll be done soon and I’ll get back to the words that I love the most …
But
I always seem to find more to do that isn’t doing what I love.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not blaming the other things in my life that I have to do. I spend enough time on Facebook and watching netflix that I probably could scrape together the time I need.
And lately I’ve been working my way through the re-acquaintance with my “Real” work (as opposed to “Work” work) so I now say to myself what I said in my second last post, “… keep going, you were right, you are a writer.”
And the thing is …
The thing that keeps me believing that I will succeed in finishing this work of fiction that I started several years ago is the thing I mentioned above, I love the characters in the book I’m working on.
I love them and I love the situation they are in, the plans they’ve laid, the machinations they have put into motion.
I love that and I love writing.
I love it …with a passion
