Category: Writing

Now that I’ve dedicated myself to writing again and am trying to pursue it with intensity, I am reminded of one important fact.

It’s hard.

Not the writing itself (although sometimes it can feel like you’re chiseling granite with a dental pic). No, what’s hard is sitting down to write, and then actually writing.

That sounds stupid, I know. After all, if you love to do something, why should it be hard to make yourself do it? If you know the act itself is going to give you pleasure and fulfillment, why is it a problem?

It makes no sense, but I think it happens with everything that’s worthwhile. As soon as we commit to a particular path, things rise up and get in the way. Internal things. External things. Fear. Arrogance. Pride. Family responsibilities. Car trouble. Drama at work. Drama at home. Anything and everything that can distract us from our goal comes into play.

Sometimes the distractions aren’t even overt, and that makes them more insidious. As I’ve said in other posts, I have a hard time concentrating if I don’t turn off my wireless router before I start working. If I leave it on, I find myself surfing the Internet, following link after link, or browsing my various social media sites until I get a headache. People aren’t really saying anything vital, yet I sit, chin in hand, mouth open, eyes vacant, scrolling along. When I finally tear myself away, I’ve lost all of my writing time – I’ve given it to the Internet. Even turning the router off doesn’t always help. One day last week I threw away my writing time because I was re-organizing my iTunes playlists. Why did I do that? Why did I think that task was so urgent it needed to be done right that second? I have no idea.

I think the challenges we face when pursuing a worthwhile goals are tests of our commitment. Can we push through? Can we develop good habits and good practices? Can we focus? Will we chase that thing we love even when it flits away and is caught up in the fog of everyday life? Maybe we are always offered the chance to face these challenges but we don’t notice until we’re trying to look beyond them.

If you can muscle through, I think the reward is great. Even now, when I persevere and beat back the weeds trying to crowd me, I can see glimpses of what might be possible. And I already know that letting the weeds win, letting them swamp me and choke me, will let them steal the most valuable part of me. I know it because it’s what I’ve lived during the past year. I know it because now I’m trying to beat the weeds back, one writing session at a time.

Man, I hope I remember all of this six months from now. Those weeds aren’t going away – they’re like darned wild strawberries. They’re just setting down stronger roots, preparing to attack again, ready to take over my whole garden.

Because it’s hard.

 

Lives go down the tubes one repetition at a time, one deflection at a time, 140 characters at a time.

—Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro

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Okay, dear readers, it is true confessions time here at Betsy’s Blog.

I’ve been struggling with my writing for about eight months now. I mean, REALLY struggling. The fact is, I’ve been pretty disheartened by the whole situation.

My second book was rejected by the publisher of my first book, and probably rightly so. That’s not unusual – writers get rejected all the time. Heck, I’ve been rejected more times than I can count. But this time it was more difficult to o’er leap the bounds of discouragement.  My work stuttered and staggered, lurched from side to side.

At the same time, the voices in my head began speaking, and they’re not always fun to be around.

Why wasn’t your book good enough? Why don’t you have more written? Why haven’t you produced more? Why do you only have one more book written and _____ has three? You know how you want to rework the book, why can’t you just do it? Why do you always take longer than everyone else to get things done? Why are you so slow? Why can’t you commit like ______ can?

These are not necessarily valid or healthy thoughts, but they’ve been buzzing around inside me since last fall, growing in intensity. And finally, at the end of March, I had what I guess you could call a crisis of faith. I just couldn’t see the point of trying anymore.

One day it struck me that I didn’t HAVE to be a writer. I told myself that, because I call myself a writer, and I’m not producing as I think I should be producing, I’m a failure. But if I DON’T try to write, then I’m not a failure…right? I mean, what the hell? Other people aren’t tormented this way. Other people just live their lives and watch the TV and go to their jobs and are perfectly happy.

So at the end of March, I stopped writing. Everything.

At first it was okay. I felt a little guilty, but it was also a relief not to be under all of the internal pressure.

But the energy I’d been putting into writing turned and spun out into strange obsessions, as I mentioned in my last post. Weeks passed, and I lost my way. Most importantly, I lost my sense of self. I lost my center. I wasn’t the hamster, I was the wheel spinning around and around.

Finally, I started writing again. Just a little.

Before I’d stopped writing, I’d been reworking the manuscript that had been rejected. When I looked at it again, I realized it was pretty good.  Not perfect, but…pretty good.

More importantly, as soon as I opened Scrivener to pull up my work, I felt better. I felt more like me.

I think I needed to go through this crisis to understand (again) that I’m a writer, no matter how I second-guess myself. For better or worse, it’s not just a label I’ve slapped on myself – telling stories is an essential part of who I am.

I also realized that some of my issues were because I felt I needed to trail after everyone else on the path towards being an “awwwthor“.  Don’t get me wrong, the business side of things – publishing, promotion, marketing – is indeed of vital importance, but for me it just can’t take priority over the actual writing.  The writing is what I love and the writing it what sustains me.  If I want to stay sane, “writer” has to come first, not “author”.

So, I don’t know. I’m human – I still feel discouraged when I see people publishing multiple books and I only have one out. But  the past few months have taught me one thing – no matter what else I may be, I AM a writer.

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I guess I’m kind of an obsessive person.  Once my train gets on a particular track, I do not derail easily.

In some ways that’s kind of a good thing.  It’s one of the reasons I can write a novel, clean out my closets, or mow my lawn.  I might not be fast, but I keep plugging away until the thing gets finished.  I think I can….I think I can….

But it can also be, um, problematic.

If I had more time and less shame I would, for example, make an excellent stalker.  When I’m in full obsession mode, I pull out all the stops and the obsession becomes my single point of focus.

The last two months I’ve been in the middle of a full obsession attack.  This one lasted longer than most because one area of obsession morphed seamlessly into the next until I came back to sanity a week or so ago.  Don’t believe me?  I’ll show you.  Following are my recent obsessions in the order in which they appeared.

1.  Selling books to buyback sites.

Hey – it takes a lot of time to look up over 3000 ISBNs, especially when you have to do them one at a time for the most part.  And that doesn’t even count packing and shipping the things.  I spent hours and hours and HOURS selling these books.  It was, literally, a second job.   Although I did pay down some debt.

which morphed into…

2.  Learning eBay so I can sell the books the buyback sites didn’t want.

I am now the proud owner of a digital postal scale and a variety of boxes.  I have also organized my product neatly into various containers.  I haven’t actually sold anything yet though, because before I started…

this obsession moved without pause into…

3.  Mulch and the spreading thereof.

Suddenly I decided that the garden desperately needed weeding and mulching (and it did), and it was getting hot (and it was), so I had to do EVERYTHING all at ONCE and I had to do it NOW NOW NOW!  I cannot express to you how obsessed I’ve been with mulch.  Seriously.  At one point I was having dreams about its purchase, transport and spreading.  I really hate mulch.  I hate gardening.

thoughts of mulch led to…

4.  SUVs

After I realized how much mulch I could carry with my sister’s SUV, I became obsessed by the thought of buying one of my own even though I can’t afford one.  I started spending a lot of time watching SUVs in parking lots, evaluating them, pricing them on-line.  In other words – I stalked them.  See?  I told you I’d be a good at it.

and then I came back into my right mind.  More or less.

Sadly, the above list basically takes us from the middle of April to the middle of June.  Obsession city.

So, what were these obsessions?  What were they really (besides slightly psychotic)?

Avoidance.

These tasks were not avoidance simply because I performed them.  Except for the SUV insanity, everything on the list needed to be done.  No, these tasks were avoidance because I focused on them to the exclusion of all else.

And do you see anything missing from the itemized list of obsessions above?

That’s right – writing.  Somehow I managed NOT to become obsessed with writing, even though writing is my goal.  As a result, two months of my life went by and I basically got nothing done.

The tasks listed above are just distractions.  They’re just things that need doing or “something to think about”.  In my life, they aren’t important in the deepest sense of the word.  Obsessing over these kinds of things lets me complain about how busy I am, when in reality I’m just running from one thing to another to avoid doing my work.

But in the end, the work is what matters, not the amount of mulch on my flower beds.

Because I obsessed about non-important busy-ness, I spent my precious time doing a lot of things I hate just so I can say they’re done.  And I pushed aside the thing that really does bring me joy.

It is a true fact of life that these little, annoying, day-filling tasks are never done.  There’s always another one coming at you.

Tomorrow may never come.

Today is all we have.

You will always have busy tasks.  Make room for the important stuff.

For me, that means writing.

Hey!  I think I’ll go do that now.

 

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After I moved into the Palatial Horvath Estate, I was intimidated by my closets for thirteen years.

Sad, but true.

See, I wanted to organize them, but I had so much stuff jammed in there I didn’t know how to begin. Year after year it kept getting worse…and worse…and worse. It was overwhelming. So what did I do?

That’s right. I did nothing.

Then Hurricane Sandy came and the power went out for five days. I couldn’t go anywhere. It was cold. It was quiet. And, without even realizing what I was doing, I found myself organizing a closet.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop myself. Over the next couple of weeks, I whipped through my closets like a gerbil on speed. I wore myself out, but most of my closets are organized now.

What had I done? I’d started. That’s all. Just…started.

I thought about my closets the other day as I was contemplating the manuscript I’ve been working on for over a year. I’m still learning how to work with this whole writing gig, so I’ve made another classic newbie mistake – the beginning of the book is polished and seems pretty good, but everything falls apart about half way through. Looking at the manuscript, knowing I have to fix it or I’ll be wasting a lot of good effort (not to mention over a year of my life), was overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to do it.

What did I really need to do? I needed to start.

That’s all. Just…start.

So, (finally) that’s what I’ve done. I started by outlining what I had, and that’s showing me where I need to go. It turns out everything I need is mostly there anyway, there’s just a few vital pieces missing.

The point is, I’ve started. Now I have some momentum going, but it’s only because I (finally) started.

There’s power in making a start. Taking one step makes it easier to take the next one. It can be hard to overcome the inertia, but we have to do it. We eat an elephant one bite at a time, but if we never open our mouth to take the first bite, the elephant isn’t going to get et.

So if you have something you’ve been putting off, start. That’s all. Just…start. Because you can’t finish it if you never take the first step.

 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!  Begin it now.

W. H. Murray
The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

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I am single.

I work.

I write.

Ergo – I have no time.

I love writing, I have to work, and I’m actually quite happy to be single, to tell you the truth.  But they each do tend to produce their own difficulties.  And managing them all together can be somewhat…challenging.

Here’s the thing – if you’re single and live alone, everything that needs to be done has to be done by, well, you.  I mean, I can tell the cats to take out the trash or do the dishes, but they don’t cooperate very well.  Yes, I know I need to put my writing first, but honestly I also need clean underwear.  And I can only live in so much filth before I feel compelled to do something about it.

I read a book by Nora Roberts where the heroine worked all day, took care of a child as a single parent, stayed up all night setting up her own business and cleaning her house AND got involved in a passionate affair.

Right.

Oh – and then there’s the one, another Nora, where the woman is a witch and she cooks, right?  So she gets up at the butt-crack of dawn every morning, sings while she bakes muffins, gets to work by 7:00 am with a full load of (freshly made) food for the day, learns all about magic and witchcraft, AND gets involved in a passionate affair.

Maybe Nora is an insomniac, but this is not happening in my life.

We all have our challenges.  People who want to write or do something else creative and have families (especially young children) probably have it harder than I do.  At least I have a little  control over my schedule.  I know a lot of people who plan to live their lives after the children have moved out.

I’m here to tell you that it won’t be any easier then.  There will always be new excuses, new reasons not to reach for what you want.  And it will always be difficult.

You just have to do it.

So, I’m going to stop whining about my time and get with the program.

But I’m still not singing as I get up early in the morning to bake muffins.

 

 

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I was reading a post on another blog and it reminded me about Robert Heinlein’s 5 rules of writing.

In case you don’t know, the rules are:

 

1 – You must write

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I’ve been trying to get my writing career, such as it is, moving forward in a speedier manner.

Oh, hell, let’s be honest.  I’ve just been trying to get my writing career moving forward, period.

That means, my dears, that I have to write.  I have to produce.  People are not going to read books I have blowing through the wheat fields of my mind.  They tend to want to have the words typed down somewhere.

For me, the most important thing is simply showing up every day.  And not just showing up every day, but showing  up every day for a sufficient amount of time to actually get work done.  Showing up every day is the best thing I can do if I really want to write.

I’ve found that it’s really easy to skip one day, then two.  Then the two days become two weeks or two months.  Then, when I finally talk myself into sitting back down at the computer, I stare at the screen, sluggish and blank.  It’s as if the pipe that connects me to my muse has gotten filled with gunk over the time I wasn’t writing, and it needs to be flushed out.

Once I reach that state, I have to push myself to stay at the computer, force myself to take one shuddering step after the other.  Finally after an hour or two (or three or four) the words start to flow again.  It’s as if I’ve poured Draino down my drain.

But if I show up every day, the words keep flowing.  It may be that the words I’m writing aren’t, well, good, but they’re at least moving.  And if they move, they will eventually find their way.

So I say that, no matter your creative pursuit, you have to show up every day.  You have to put in your time.  You have to keep your pipes clean.  You have to keep the flow moving.

Because if you stop, you’ll get full of gunk.

 

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Okay, so I’ll come clean and tell you that my contemporary romance novel was rejected by Carina Press. I was disappointed, but the editor sent me a very, very nice email and gave me some suggestions to point me in the right direction. If you’re a writer, I don’t have to tell you how unusual that is – most of the time you get a form letter and a hearty farewell.

I let things sit for a couple of weeks, but it wouldn’t leave me alone so I’m taking some time to work on revisions before I continue working on the next book.

It’s my own fault.  I should have known there was still work to do when I was having so much trouble finding the ending. In part I panicked because I felt like I should have had another book finished by this point. On the other hand, I probably also decided it was finished just because I was tired of revising.

It can be annoying to run the same course over and over again. After a while you can’t see what you’re actually looking at. You just see “I want this to be finished” and so you call it complete.

If you’re like me, then once you finally have the basic structure of a thing set, whether it be in art or in life, you forget it can still change. You try to work within the framework you’ve created, even if the framework has problems. Pulling apart an existing framework is like performing microsurgery – you have to put on your magnifying glasses and look at the thing strand by strand. It’s a lot more fun to decorate a house than it is to repair a cracked foundation.

As far as my manuscript goes, I think I know where I went astray, so I’m picking apart the strands to sew them into a different pattern. I know the basic changes I want to make, but one change in a story leads to other, bigger changes down the road so I have some work ahead of me.

Stories.  They’re like life.  One change leads to a bunch of others.

What else can we do but enjoy the trip?

 

“Good writing is essentially rewriting.”

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The problem with books about writing is that a lot of writers write good books about writing. Because they are written by professional writers writing about something they love (writing), the books are usually persuasive and present compelling arguments for whatever arguments the book is trying to compel you toward. They might even have good tips or advice.

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As you know if you read my last blog post, I sometimes have trouble finishing things. Part of that is, as I mentioned, because when you finish something it goes out into the world to be judged by the masses (most of the time). That can be a little intimidating. But the other reason I sometimes have trouble finishing a thing is because I have a hard time knowing when it’s, well, finished.

One of the many valuable lessons I learned going through the whole publishing process with HOLD ME, is that nothing’s ever perfect. You try to make something perfect, you try to revise and refine and whittle away at it, and people still look at the thing and see major flaws. I don’t care what you’re doing – you just can’t please everyone. On the other hand, you want to do the best that you can. You want to give it your all and make it the best thing that it can be at that moment.

So, how do you know when it’s finished? How do you know when you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns, when the revisions or changes or tweaking you’re going to do will just steal the life out of the thing instead of making it better? When do you know that it’s time to take the next step and move beyond where you are now?

I don’t know. I’m still learning. I know that you can’t base your decision on what you think other people will say. I know that you can’t NEVER make that decision – at some point you’re going to have to move forward. I think all you can do is look at the thing you’re doing with a heart open to know when it is the best you can make it. Then you have to let it go. And realize that it’s not perfect.

Which is easier said than done. 🙂

 

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You may have noticed that I haven’t been around the blog too much in the last few weeks.  Well, maybe you noticed.  Maybe somebody noticed.  Maybe?  Hello?

The reason I haven’t blogged much lately is I was finishing up a book I’ve been working on (a contemporary romance novel).  Sometimes I have trouble finishing things.  When you finish something, it usually needs to go out into the world to be viewed by others.  That’s scary.

For this new book, I gave myself a deadline.  Okay, I gave myself several deadlines.  And I missed them.  Looking back, I probably invented reasons to miss them, although I didn’t think so at the time.

I finally pulled on my big girl panties and gave myself a drop-dead deadline.  I committed myself totally to meeting that deadline because I knew that if I didn’t, I would be fooling around with the manuscript for months to come, making deadlines and missing deadlines.

Last month, whenever I wasn’t working at my day job, or caring for my mother, I was working on my manuscript.  I was focused and I was intent.  This thing was going to get done, and it was going to be submitted.  I was going to finish what I started.

My drop-dead, if-I-don’t-meet-it-I-won’t-respect-myself-in-the-morning deadline was Labor Day.  And, I made it.  Actually I probably could have made the day before, but because I felt like I had time, I fooled around and didn’t have the synopsis finished.

Regardless, I got the book done, and I got it submitted on Labor Day.  Then I went into a full-blown, hyperventilating panic attack.  Then, on Tuesday I started another book.  And now I’m flailing around like a muppet on a stormy sea once again.

Will the book I submitted be accepted?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if I’ll have to submit it to multiple publishers, or if it will be considered publishable at all.  I know that I like it, and it amused me when I wrote it and I had a lot of fun writing it.  I also know that I started it, I refined it to the best piece of work I could produce at this time, and I finished it.  No matter what happens now as I go through the whole submission process, it is a success as far as I’m concerned.

I guess the moral of the story is:  no one will ever benefit from anything you’re trying to do if you don’t actually start.  And they won’t know the thing exists if you don’t finish it and get it out there into the world.

 

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As you may know if you’ve read my blog before, I have a love-hate relationship with Time. Well, it’s more of an epic struggle. I wrestle with time the way Jacob wrestled with the angel at the side of the road. I’m kind of outmatched.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about time and the way I use the time I’ve been given. It occurred to me that the activities where you invest your time are the activities where you see returns in your life.

Think of time as Monopoly money. We’re all given a bankroll when we begin playing the game of our lives – a certain amount of time allocated to us for our own use. We get to invest that time in whatever we want. We’re using our time to purchase things, and where we spend it determines what we’ll get.

There are some things we have to do – like clean the house. We can invest a minimal amount of time in cleaning and organizing the house. A minimal amount of time investment produces a house that looks like mine. Or you can invest a lot of your time cleaning and organizing the house. Then you may end up with a closet fit to host the Queen of England should she come pay a visit. And that’s absolutely fine as long as you find the payment you receive (a clean house, a spectacular closet) to be worth what you invest to get them (your time).

But I think you have to be careful. If your goal is to be a writer, then you have to invest your time – your QUALITY time – writing. If you invest it in Twitter or Facebook, chances are you will be paid with many followers, more than a little drama – and no book. If your goal is to be a painter, then you’d better invest your quality time painting. If you invest it in other things, you’ll be rewarded – but you won’t be rewarded with a painting. Ditto with any other pursuit worth pursuing. You have to invest your time heading in the direction you want to go. If you invest it elsewhere, you’ll end up in a different place.

Well, that’s the way it works in my life anyway.

So, where did you invest your time today?

 

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You may be shocked to hear this, but I have trouble with time. It always takes me longer to get where I need to be than I think it will. If I want to be somewhere by a particular time, I usually have to fool myself about either the time I have to leave, or the time I need to get there. Otherwise I find myself leaving the house at the time I should be arriving at my destination. Since teleportation does not exist in my neighborhood, and Dr. Who is busy saving the galaxy, this generally means I’m going to be late.

Just as a side note regarding teleportation, do you remember the remake of the movie “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum? Creepy. I think even if teleportation did exist, I’d still drive.

I have the same problem with self-imposed deadlines as I do with appointments. I set a goal, set a deadline, and then apparently think I’ll get to the destination almost immediately. However, as with a physical journey, the journey from idea to achievement of a goal can take a little time. Invariably I leave the starting block too late, life gets in the way, and I see my deadline speeding towards me like a pack of wild elephants. In panic, I push it off, say I’ll start again tomorrow, and go eat carbs to drown my sorrow. The deadline never gets hit, and the objective never gets met, or gets met a lot later than I’d hoped it would.

Ironically I’m only this bad with self-imposed deadlines. If somebody else gives me a deadline, I can usually make it with no problem. It’s like being expected at a particular place at a specific time – I do whatever I need to do to make it happen. In other words, I’m okay when it’s not just about me. If I’m trying to meet another person’s expectations, I give what I’m doing importance.

Someone once said that a “goal was a plan with a deadline”. Well, if a goal has a deadline, and if I have trouble meeting my self-imposed deadlines, then I”m going to have trouble meeting my goals. And that means I need to give my goals and the deadlines associated with them the same priority I would give another person’s expectations. After all, shouldn’t I want to meet my own expectations? Shouldn’t the expectations I have of myself be given priority and importance too?

I guess the short way of saying this is, life gets in the way. And you need to set reasonable deadlines you at least have a chance of hitting. But if you have a goal, you can’t keep pushing the deadline out of the way to make room for everyone else.

 

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I’ve probably said this before, but there really are a lot of benefits to routine. I’m always reminded of this when my routine is broken for one reason or another.

I’ve found that in my life I need a routine. I need structure. Without it, I find one thing bleeding into the next until the whole day has passed with precious little to show for it. But if I have a plan, I can get things accomplished.

I also find a routine to be comforting. It’s a way of controlling an uncontrollable world, and gives me a way of having power in my own life. I might not be able to control the stock market, or world governments, or even my Internet connection, but I can control my routine, at least to a certain extent. The order of a daily structure helps me anchor my life and opens a window of space and time and opportunity for the Muse to show up for a lengthy conversation.

You might think that having a daily structure would stifle creativity, but it really doesn’t. Rather, the framework gives me a chance to be who I am. As with a sonnet or a haiku, there is a set structure, but the exploration of possibilities within that structure is endless.

But life being what it is, you can’t always follow your routine. People and circumstances push into your personal space, push past the boundaries you’ve established, push aside your routine and insist on their own demands. I find those times to be especially challenging. I become disoriented and much less productive. I also find myself becoming extremely anxious and looking around for ways to anchor myself. Some of the ways I choose are not good alternatives. So I cherish and try to preserve my routine, and I try to build enough flexibility into it that I can bend without breaking.

I hope this doesn’t make me anal, but I guess it probably does. And I’m okay with that. Because there are a lot of benefits to a good routine.

 

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You may, or may not, remember that I had a wee bit of an issue deciding where to put my desk. Although the Palatial Horvath Estate is indeed grand, there are a limited number of desk locations.

As I said in my original post, it shouldn’t matter where the desk is, logically speaking. After all, if I have a wireless router, I can work anywhere. And yet I’ve found that moving the desk made a big difference in my productivity.

When I first moved into the Palatial Horvath Estate, I put my desk in my bedroom because it was convenient. That didn’t work well. It was hard to view my desk as my business space when it was there. I also think it reminded me too much of when I was young and hiding in my bedroom. At this point in my life, I find myself unwilling to hide.

I moved my desk to my spare room. Although in theory it was a good idea to turn the spare room into an office, this did not work for me in practice. In my house, the spare room is that – extra. It’s basically a storage shed I don’t have to walk outside to get to. There are times (like now) when I can hardly get through it. Having the desk there seemed to indicate that I did not respect my writing, and that it was not important or central.

Finally, a few weeks after my original blog post, I gave up and moved the desk to my main living space. I thought it would be good because it’s the biggest, brightest room in the house. But now I find that having my desk there gives it pride of place. It says to me, and to the people who come to visit, that this piece of furniture represents a vital part of my life. Having it there, in my main living area, also reminds me that I consider it important. Since I moved it, my productivity has increased. More importantly, when I see it I think – “This is what I do. This is who I am.”

I realize this is not an ideal situation for every writer. First, I’m a piler, not a filer, so I work better when things are out in the open. I also have a huge advantage because I’m single and live alone. Writers (or other creative people) living with others need to find a place where they can be themselves. For me, the whole house is my personal space.

However you do it, you need a place where your creative endeavor can bloom. Because it is important. And it should not be buried.

Just like Goldilocks, it might take a few tries to find the space that’s just right.

 

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Sometimes I wonder why I write. Usually I wonder after I’ve spent several hours at my desk and can hardly move when I get up. Or when my arms ache so much from working on the computer that I just want to cry.

Why am I writing? Will I still do it if I never sell another book? Will I still do it if I never break through? If I never reach beyond a certain level in my career? If nobody else ever knows about my books? If I never make another dime? Will I still write?

Yes.

In fact, I have written for years and years with precious little reward (and absolutely no payment). Nobody does that unless they have some kind of dedication to the thing itself.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that, as much as I love sharing my stories with all of you, I write because it fills something inside me. It is important to me. What else would I do? How else would I spend my time? Sitting and eating and watching television all the time? Why shouldn’t I write?

I think we all need that thing, the one thing we do whether or not we’re being paid to do it, or recognized for doing it. The thing we do because we feel alive when we’re doing it. It might be running or hiking or four-wheeling or photography or playing with kids. Whatever it is, it fills us up. And it’s important. And we think, “Why not? What else would I do?”

 

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Back when I was a younger, free-spending Betsy, I used to shop from the Levenger catalog. I like to think of Levenger as pushers for the literary set. Their actual tagline is “tools for serious readers”. And let me tell you, those tools don’t come cheap.

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