Writing for Your Life
Ever since I can remember, I have been "writing for my life". Some of you reading this may wonder what this is. Well, "writing for your life" is when you are a writer not just out of an all-consuming desire to put words on a blank page and to tell a story that is wrung from the depths of your soul. Nope, "writing for your life" is a motivation that is quite base in comparison, almost primal in its feel. Writing as survival! You write to keep the demons at bay that threaten to close in on you for the sole purpose of crippling your spirit. You write so that someday the bill collectors can be tamed and perhaps banished (to some degree, at least). You write to save your own life from obscurity and anonymity that you know you will not be able to stomach while so many others walk around from day to day with little to no interest in realizing nor tapping into their own potential. Currently, I'm reading a book entitled "Mrs. Poe" by Lynn Cullen. There is one exchange in the book between a fictional Edgar Allan Poe and a literary admirer of his who asks him if he would be interested in donating any of the money earned by his publication of "The Raven" to a local charity. His answer to her is what brought me to the topic of this here blog post. Poe answers, "I am my own charity." He had to be. He lived penniless and died in the same dire straits. But I think it would be fair to say, knowing what we know about Poe's mental instability as well as the finanical struggles he faced most of his life, that he too was a writer who was writing for his life. Stephen King wrote "Carrie" in the laundry room of the family trailer home with a board balanced across his knees and a small typewriter on top. He writes in "On Writing" about keeping the wolves away from the door by constantly writing and putting words down. I know the old caveat that many authors offer to the up and coming writer: write because you love to write and not because you want to be rich and famous. Guess what? I write for all of the above because struggling financially is a motivation like no other to get me to sit my ass down and to do my work! I am writing for my life and will continue to, because I don't always want to have to play eenie-meenie-minie-moe when it comes to what bills I can pay now and what bills will "just have to wait two weeks"! I owe it to my family and every wonderful friend and family member that ever believed in me. King also once told a friend in conversation, before he became perhaps the most popular writer of the 20th century, "I know I have a cash register in my head; I just need to learn how to use it." Well, folks, I've worked as a cashier on more than one occasion, so that's something, right? Here's to "writing like your life depends on it" because it bloody-well does and here's also to making no apologies for it.
