Did You Write All Those Words Yourself?

[Peg Herring]

It's funny how a lot of people can't believe that someone they know is both capable of and willing to write a novel. For someone not that excited about reading one, writing a book seems a Herculean task, an incredible number of words piled together, beyond comprehending. I actually got the comment above from someone I know well. She could not believe, as she flipped through a book that she will never even attempt, that I knew that many words and could set them down in some logical manner.

The other question I get is "How long did it take you to write this?" The implied question behind it is apparently "Why would you spend all that time writing when you could be (fill in the blank)?" To those who don't do it voluntarily, writing seems an incredible commitment, and of course it is. I might have been working on my admittedly pathetic abs instead, or bending an elbow at the local bar, or rearranging my closets, but I chose to sit in a chair and hammer out words on a keypad. Hard to understand for those unbitten by the writing bug.

But yes, I did write all those words. Some fell willingly onto the page, some had to be dragged from corners of my mind, and some only appeared with help from those lists Roget so happily provides. And yes, I wanted to do it. I willingly sacrificed my time, my housework, and my numb posterior to put down for the ages the story that my imagination created. If it isn't a story for the ages, oh well. It's my story, and I wrote every word all by myself.