Born to Write

[Peg Herring]

I spoke with a woman on the phone yesterday and got a now-familiar response. We were talking about real estate, but when I mentioned that I write, she said, "I've always wanted to write a book."

Yup. Another one. She went on to say that she's just too busy to get started on it, etc. etc.

I know she isn't lying. I know she'd really like to. But I can't help but think that if you really, really want to write, you'll write.

The last year I taught school, I also wrote a play and a novel. Anyone who has taught English will tell you that there's plenty to keep a person busy in that job, so it wasn't like I had the time for them. But the compulsion? That's something else.

It's a form of insanity. Often we don't even recognize it in ourselves, but others do. Preoccupation, long periods where we disappear into solitude, scribbling away. An author in an article I read yesterday said she knows she's over the edge when she injects William Cecil's opinions into a conversation about economics. No one else really cares what Elizabeth I's ministers had to say on the subject, but to her, he's right here, judging what we do and making grumpy commentaries. Writers move, live, and breathe in the world of our own creation. The outer world intrudes, yes, but we begrudge it the attention it demands.

So it's nice that you're thinking about writing a book. But if you can still think about something else, you aren't quite crazy enough to do it yet.

[Peg Herring]

I love it, John (Margaret is so cool!) And Dana, I've gone so far as to set up two computers in my office, one at normal level, and one that I can stand at, so those hours on my rear are lessened!

[I. J. Parker]

Thanks, John. That was excellent.

[John McFetridge]

A lot of people like Margaret Atwood's response to a doctor who told her he was thinking of writing a book when he retired. She said she was thinking of taking up brain surgery when she retired.

[Dana King]

A lot of people are in love with the idea of being a writer much more than with what's involved to actually be one. They think of launch parties and seeing their books on shelves, when they should be thinking their asses into a seat.