Why do you want to write?

Years ago, back when I was much younger and still somewhat cool, I was at a party and a friend of a friend asked me a good question about being a writer and writing The Great American Novel:

“Why do you want to write a book – waste all that time – when you could just go to the bookstore and buy a good one for $5? ”

It’s a point well made.

It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to have the time to just write.   Those of us who do it in our “spare time” are eternally plagued by the other Things To Do in that spare time, and further, plagued by the guilt we feel when we are not doing them.

An old friend told me once that his only way to write was to get up every day at 4am, and use the two hours before anyone else woke up as his writing time.    4am?!    What’s a non-morning person to do?

What’s more, in the digital age, the value of creative output is going lower and lower.    We can go to YouTube and watch videos with a production quality that almost mimics Hollywood and the only cost is having to click our way through another GMC Truck Ad (Truck Month!).    One of my favorite magazines I  write for is without payment, but just the opportunity to be part of that community.

So maybe I won’t be rich and famous – whatever that means now – but that was never the goal.  I am a niche-focused writer and my niche is  not super lucrative.  So the goal is not wealth, but rather sustainment.

For the longest time, my adage was:

Go on adventures.  Write about the adventures.   Use the money to fund other adventures.

I really liked what I called the Sherlock Holmes concept.   Holmes was able to hang around with Watson and go on these boondoggle adventures because he obviously had some income coming in from some source.   I daresay the rent on 221B Baker Street wasn’t cheap, and Ole’ Miss Hudson wasn’t putting up with his antics for her health.

But where did he get his income?

There is a vague mention of royalties from a treatise or two about the difference in cigar ashes (!), but I can’t imagine him rolling in dough from that endeavor.

So on we go, adding notes into the Notebook, and find those times when opportunity and creativity align…..