Excuse me while I rant

I know way more than one person who has told me they need to be in the right mood in order to write. These are people who do not write yet call themselves writers. As in saying to me, “You and I are writers” or “we’re both writers.” Sorry, Charlie, but if you don’t write you’re not a writer and it would greatly please me if you’d stop lumping yourself in with me.

If you want to be a writer (or a painter or a violinist or a whatever), you need to do the work. Can you imagine telling your boss you’re only going to come to the job when you’re in the right mood? Can you imagine being a violinist who has to be in the mood in order to practice or give a concert? Now I can procrastinate with the best of them, but I still write and being in the right mood has nothing to do with getting my butt in the chair and my fingers wrapped around a pen or hovering over the keyboard. It’s like getting gas when the car’s tank is low. If I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done and I’ll be stuck where I don’t want to be. I suppose one of the things that does drive me to write, or to fill up the gas tank for that matter, is fear. Fear that I will be stuck where I don’t want to be when, with some effort on my part, I could have gone anywhere I wanted. In the case of writing, I might not get there, but at least I would have been on the way and on the way is so much better than never heading out.

To do anything properly takes an effort. It takes practice and practice and practice and the desire to accomplish something, then more practice. It takes dedication and then some more practice, but the biggest and best perk of doing the writing is that you can call yourself a writer.

I am a writer.