Writer Trials

They say that a writer will write no matter where they are, no matter their circumstances. If they have a full time job and a barrel of children, they'll still find the time to write every day. Writers are dedicated to writing whenever they can.

Right now then, I'm not really a writer. I think about my books when I'm at work, I write notes in between tasks, before I go to bed, I go over ideas over and over in the shower so I'll remember them when I get out. But when I get home from work...I'm tired. I'm hungry because I don't adequately feed myself during the day. I'm crabby because another day of my life has been lost to a job I don't really want to be doing, to a life I don't really want to be living.

So I don't write. I browse the internet and look at the lives of my friends and family going in positive directions while I stay stuck. I watch TV and see the creativity and hard work of so many people come to life and wish that I could find the energy to do that too.

Somewhere in the last few months my fire has been put out. I wrote the first draft of my book in a month and a half over the summer, coming home after work each day and writing a few pages, writing 20-30 pages on Saturdays and going over it all on Sundays. I was unstoppable.

This November I wrote 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, something I didn't even think I would accomplish until the last weekend, especially as work was getting busy for the holiday season. I wrote nearly 10,000 words in one day.

So what happened? I guess part of it is the effect of winter. Its just a dreary time. Part of it is that a couple weeks in a row of overtime at work is one thing, but when you're on the third straight month of craziness it gets a little old. It gets very old and feels so pointless. Its not like I'm helping to produce clothing for the homeless or food for the hungry. I'm helping wealthy middle aged women get everything they want when I have no clue how to do the same for myself (aside from marrying rich, I suppose).

Really, I'm grateful to have the job. Not when I'm there, usually, but when I get home to my own apartment, watch TV I've recorded on my DVR, or sleep in my magnificent bed, I'm grateful. I'm not pinching pennies like I used to, sharing a bathroom with my siblings or roommates like I used to. I can pay for things without flinching.

Yet somehow it's kind of terrible.

I have enough money to go three months without working and it's so tempting to make it happen, to give my notice and quit and try to enjoy life for a little bit. To stop going through the motions and actually feel alive. To write late into the night, which has always been my best time and clearly does't mesh with the 9-5 lifestyle I am entrenched in.

It would be a risk, though. I'd obviously have to find another job before those three months are up, a not so easy task these days. I may have to settle for something that pays less than what I make now. I may have to work the kind of job that I had previously congratulated myself for avoiding. Or I might find something even better, the kind of office with people on the parks and rec side of craziness (aka, awesome people). Who knows what could happen.

I wish there was a way to predict the future, to make the risks less scary and the playing it safe less boring. But at some point in the near future I'm going to have to figure something out and go after what actually matters to me. Or else I might lose myself completely.