Writing without Borders

It’s been a busy few weeks. Errands, combined with some heavy traffic, some snow, some good TV and a few books being finished, resulted in a less than favourable writing ratio. In other words, I haven’t written much during the week.

Now, all writers who write for a living will tell you that writing is a muscle you have to exercise; that true writers will make the time to write and will put themselves on a schedule so that they can reach their goals. This is very good advice. It is also, however, advice that most of us can’t follow. As much as we would like to take one or two hours an evening to write or create, we all have responsibilities to shoulder. Parents have children to look after, homeowners need to shovel, couples need to eat dinner. And if, at the end of all that, and after a long day at work, you just want to collapse and vegetate with a new episode of Lost? Well, I think you’ve earned it.

Does that make me a bad writer? Does it make me any less dedicated to my craft, knowing that I only take a few nights a week, here and there to write, and sometimes only weekends? I should hope not. Writing strikes me as something that should be done when you are having fun, especially if being a writer isn’t a full time job. I keep this blog because I love to write, I have over 25 000 words written in a novel because I love to write. I jot down ideas for short stories because I love to write. When I get frustrated at myself for not writing for a few days, my wife wisely reminds me that there are things we have to do and things we want to do. I want to write. And that is what keeps me coming back to the keyboard week after week.

Next time on the Caboose: I talk about some of the consequences of not writing every day and I try to patent a new writing term—Writer’s Guilt.