What if I didn’t write?
These are the answers I came up
with after five minutes of pondering the unthinkable.
My first thoughts: I would watch
way too much TV, eat more crap and go to bed earlier or maybe I’d walk more,
work-out and take more time planning a healthier diet.
I certainly would have time to
work a second job; I call writing “my second job” because it pays a little monetarily,
self-esteem reimbursements are huge.
Maybe I’d volunteer my slack
time, donate blood, have a cleaner house and spend more time with friends. I’d
change every paint color on every wall, garden more and vacuum my car. The
laundry would be done and I’d certainly shower more often, get my hair cut
regularly and maybe even get a manicure once a month. That’s just the on-the-surface
part of not being a writer, what about the deeper aspects.
Being creative is like breathing
to me so I’d probably go back to painting or spend what little I have left on
my charge card for a used piano. What I derive from writing is almost the same
as writing the melody of a song, music as words, yes, almost but not quite the
same.
If, in 1988 while my baby and
toddler napped if I had not taken down my Selectric Electric from the shelf in
the hall closet, if I had not made my daughters’ nap time my writing time, if I
had never written, never submitted, never made it through the traditional newspaper
publishing maze, I sincerely believe I would be a lesser person than I am
today.
Writing is like a handful of ping
pong balls rolling around in a bigger than a bowling ball empty fish tank. Roll
here, roll there until they settle calm, and kiss at the bottom and then float
to the top on ideas, wisdom and tenaciousness.
When I think of what I would have
missed on that day in ’88 when the girls slept, if I had one more unread
magazine in the house, or if I was tired and wanted to nap while they napped,
or if the typewriter didn’t work or if I was out of paper and all the pencils
were gone. What if I never believed that what I had to say mattered or if I thought
learning was for someone else or that dreams were for fools.
What if I didn’t write?
I would live, but without the
sweetness of oxygen.
What if you didn’t write?
I don't look at it like oxygen. I don't think of it as a necessary component to live, i.e. "if I didn't write I would just die!" For me, if I didn't write, I would somehow think I lost. I lost the game, I lost my sense of who I'm supposed to be at this juncture in my life, I didn't finish the race, so to speak. When I was training for those marathons, not completing a training run was out of the question. I fell coming down the stairs one morning, just before an important run (one of the long ones - i.e. 18 miles) and my husband immediately said, "Don't run. You just fell." I looked at him like he'd lost his mind. I said, "it's my elbows that hurt, not my feet." And I ran. That's how I view writing. I have to do it - until. Until what? Until I'm published. It's that straight forward. If this next WIP doesn't sell, then I'll write another, and another, and another. It something does. The End. :)
ReplyDeleteP.S. This is part of my next post. In case these words appear slightly familiar later on...LOL!
Ewww. TYPO! The last sentence...was supposed to be Until something does. More coffee. Must have more coffee before typing comments.
DeleteDonna, it is so much a part of my life right now I can't imagine myself not a writer.
DeleteMy daughters and I were at a wedding shower recently and sitting at a table with strangers. I was talking to someone and I heard another person ask my daughter, "what does your mother do" and she answered, "she's a writer". That my daughter's first reply was "writer" made me realize , oh yeh, that's what I do, and it sounds so much better than my pedestrian day job.
What's funny is that I would not have defined myself as a writer I would have given them a long spiel about my 9 to 5 - 'just' a job.
There is a kick to being published. It validates the herculean effort we put forth. You will be published Donna and you will go on to other projects. I know that as much as I know one of Averil's books will make the top of the NYTs best seller's list, Janet will eventually write one, Betsy will see her screenplay produced and I will get a title page if I live long enough.
It's in my soul and keeps me putting one keystroke in front of the other.
Must dream of way to head to Connecticut so I snatch some of that optimism of yours. LOL! When I think of the odds...well, as I've read here before - from your lips to God's ear.
Delete