Coffee With David

Being a writer is a very frustrating and solitary vocation and lifestyle. When you write full time and work in the real world full time many things fall by the wayside to enhance the element of solitude as you try to conquer deadlines and huge projects. Sometimes friends, families, or even people you might want to have a relationship with do not quite understand. Maybe the writer himself does not understand either.

Writers—or maybe it is just me—are driven to write. It pushes us, nags us and we know the truth of the matter is that if we don’t write the story or poem it will never get done. There are a lot of “want-to-be writers” who picture what it would be like to go on book tours or hit success and be on a morning talk show discussing how this or that played into some twist of what they wrote—assuming they ever sat down to write. Other writers, regardless of their level of success, will sit for long hours wrenching out of their muse and soul every drop they can get. We do this despite the foreknowledge that we are most likely to get a rejection slip in response to our submissions. That doesn’t stop us and we should not let it. After all, if a professional baseball player is considered successful for getting a hit roughly 3 out of every 10 times at bat, why should we expect to do more?

On top of the long hours, the muscle pain and eye strain from sitting and writing, and digging out the time to actually go get physical exercise so we don’t have a heart attack sitting at our desk (or table in a coffee house—so they can be surrounded by people), there is the lack of support some writers receive. They may come from a family that does not see writing as a job or understand what success is in this field because they picture success as going to an office from 8 to 5. On the other hand, the writer may start a relationship or want to be in one with someone who thinks they are ignored because the writer is trying to get “ink on paper.”

Writing is a long and hard road. We make our choices because we have to. We don’t sit on the sidelines and dream about the day we will get into the game. We have to jump into the game and work hard at it, chalk up our wins and losses, and keep juggling everything we can. When we find those friends (or even someone to love) who tries to understand, we have to hold onto them and thank fate for bringing them into our lives—for coming out of solitude into their company can make the long hours worth it even more than the hope for a check to pay for a submitted work.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest information on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.