From the Fiction Desk

Writing is hard and anyone who is trying to make a living at it needs to be smart, determined and maybe even slightly insane. Some would be writers dream of writing someday, but they do not realize that writing is an art and to be a writer you need to write. While this sounds like common sense, many writers either take a break to focus on other things in their lives (marriage, kids, the bill paying job) or think that they can write a novel when they retire or have some spare time.

Writing is an art that grows through habit. By writing every day the art form and the flow of words continues to improve. Only the celebrities can publish a book without having tried to write one and their secret is that the books are ghost written by the starving artist who will never get credit.

Why write? If the odds are against you and the pay is lousy, why put yourself forward as a writer? Is it for fame and glory? Some may do it for that reason, but there are easier ways to obtain that fame and glory is not always what it is cracked up to be. In most writers there is a need to write that is as basic to us as the need to breathe. We will spend our time hurting our eyes as we stare at computer screens and editing for hours on end. We may lose relationships with those who cannot understand the drive of the art that pushes us forward. Writers who try to make a living at it are obsessed gamblers. We do not have to play at a poker table or the slot machine. We gamble every time we put ink on paper and submit our article, poem, story, or book to a would be publisher and hope to be paid.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more articles, blogs, poetry, and stories that I write.