Living The Dream

Over the past few days, I have been considering embarking on a new business venture in addition to my full time job and side projects.

To determine whether I wanted to do this or not, I sat down and thought about what I hoped to gain from it. My truthful answers were as follows:

•  Money
•  A new car
•  More time to write
•  A skill I’ve run from my entire life

The third answer has been plaguing me since I first thought it up: more time to write. Why, on a list of goals and aspirations from a completely unrelated job, did this particular goal spring to mind?

That’s a rhetorical question – I know why it came up. I’ve always romanticized the idea of the writer, swathed comfortably in loosefitting clothes and grasping a steaming cup of coffee, face brightened by the backlights of a screen as fingers flew fearlessly across a field of letters. I’ve also always wanted to write a novel; about what, I don’t know, I’ve just always wanted to do it.

When I wasn’t a novelist by 12, I pushed it to 15. Then 20. Then I realized everyone was writing books, so it didn’t appeal so much to me anymore. I didn’t want to get lost in the crowd of self-publishing. So I gave up. Then started again, then gave up again. Maybe I’ll still do it.

I had a blog, a blog that I nursed for a year, that could have really been on to something if I’d kept it up. But it was too scattered, and I wanted to make money. Focused blogs would be better, I thought, so I started a slew of themed blogs. That failed miserably.

I should have known – my themed journals failed too, often within one or two entries of announcing said “theme”. It was too hard to stop my wandering mind, and before I knew it I’d gone off track before I could even develop the theme and that idea went out the window. I still keep journals though. I got my first journal sometime around the fourth grade. I’ve been through countless since then and still write to this day, usually when I’m ready to tear something apart or feeling particularly reflective. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I turned my journals into books, but then people would really think I had mental issues.

All throughout my life I’ve had a guard up when it comes to writing, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it came from the impression I had of a writer, that most of them are not quite as successful as they should be. Maybe it came from higher expectations of me, that I was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or something and not just a writer. What torture, to be ashamed of a dream! Ashamed of your passion! To feel as though you have to eschew the thing that flows from you as easily as blood from a pin prick, without warning or even thought, is a horrible way to spend even a minute of life, much less decades. Decades!   (I would like to note, as an aside, that I DID have support from my closest family, those who had read things I'd written dating back to the first grade and saw something I probably will never see. But most others wanted to see me wearing a fancy title.)

Despite all of my attempts to the contrary, the urge to write always comes back. And when it comes, it just bowls me over. The fibers in my heart start firing and my brain explodes with ideas and regardless of what I’m doing I run for a pen and paper or the laptop and just let my fingers fly. And fly they do.

When I write, I experience a disconnect from the world like no other. I develop tunnel vision as my writing implement and the deepest folds of my imagination become one. I do not think through what I write before I write it, often have no idea of what will come from the blank pages; I simply let my mind talk through my fingers and survey the damage later.

I recently started writing for hire, and though I enjoy it, it’s every bit the chore sometimes that I imagined being paid to write would be. It’s one thing to stay up all night satisfying a deep internal urge to write; it’s quite another to burn the midnight oil the day before a deadline because I couldn’t muster up the energy to start earlier. Surprisingly I still get the same flow effect, but it's a lot harder to start in the first place. At least I know why I’m not a professional novelist – I would not be able to survive under that kind of pressure.

My eyes itch and burn – I’m supposed to be doing something else – and yet I sit here, glasses off, eyes squinted, barely able to see the words on the screen – and I continue to write. I have to. It pumps my blood. It’s a large part of who I am. It IS me.

It’s completely against standard logic to think that taking on an additional responsibility will free my time to write, but I know better. I don’t need more hours in the day, I have enough. I need less restrictions – less fear. Less pressure to earn money. More confidence. Perhaps this new opportunity will help with that.

If nothing else, I got a nice blog post out of it.