Welcome back! I’ve been working hard on a few novel ideas, and now I’m back to blogging! I’ll post an update on my writing soon, but until then… Don’t be a writer!

Not really. Ok, be a writer. Here’s my point. When I was younger I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to live a writers’ lifestyle. I imagined it involved hanging out at coffee shops a lot, having an apartment in an underground part of town, and maybe wearing turtlenecks. I wasn’t that bad, but I really wanted the lifestyle. There was only one flaw in my plan. I didn’t write enough.

So don’t be a writer, just write. Don’t worry about the illusion of being a writer, just write. Write as much as you can and as often as you can. There are people out there who continually tell me to write every day, and to be honest, I don’t. I have a demanding job, so I do most of my writing on the weekends. It’s a sacrifice to my writing to have a paying job, but really, I’m not the kind of guy who is comfortable not knowing where my next paycheque is coming from. Most creative writers make very little, and usually end up having to take on writing positions where they don’t get to choose what they write, and on the weekends they don’t want to write.  Maybe that’s a generalization, but that’s how it felt.

In my daily life I’m a teacher. I interact with humans, albeit tiny ones, every day, along with other teachers and parents. I get my human contact at work, so at home I can write. It’s not perfect. I’d love to stay home and write all day. My relationship with money doesn’t allow it.

But I still write. I’ve always written, sometimes short stories, sometimes for comics and graphic novels, and now novels. I don’t live the writers’ lifestyle, but I write, and it’s more important than anything to me.

So don’t be a writer. Just write.