Isaac Asimov said something to this effect: "If there is a heaven, it will be a place where I will having nothing to do but read and write novels."
Personally, I like to get out for a beer with friends from time to time, but when my writing is going well, everything else is just interference. I had a lot of life to take care of for most of my day, so I only had about two hours of productive writing time -- I would prefer eight, but that rarely happens, even on my most secluded of vacations. Once I sat down, I had a hard time getting to work. I opened up the files of my spy novel. I had to pry my way back into it. But writing is like this for me. Like a sport. I have to stretch out, warm up, loosen my subconscious.
When I did, I fell back into it, back into that old feeling of creation. Every day I ask myself, "Why write?" And I have a lot of answers that I cycle through. Some days I can't find an answer at all. But days like today, when I push past the not-wanting-to and the fear of not being able to and enter into the dream space, days like today, the answer is so clear and obvious that it doesn't have words.
Asimov's heaven sounds a little too much like Sartre's "Hell is other people," and I'm not quite willing to forsake the world entirely for the word, but days like today, I don't need much of anything else except for the story.
Personally, I like to get out for a beer with friends from time to time, but when my writing is going well, everything else is just interference. I had a lot of life to take care of for most of my day, so I only had about two hours of productive writing time -- I would prefer eight, but that rarely happens, even on my most secluded of vacations. Once I sat down, I had a hard time getting to work. I opened up the files of my spy novel. I had to pry my way back into it. But writing is like this for me. Like a sport. I have to stretch out, warm up, loosen my subconscious.
When I did, I fell back into it, back into that old feeling of creation. Every day I ask myself, "Why write?" And I have a lot of answers that I cycle through. Some days I can't find an answer at all. But days like today, when I push past the not-wanting-to and the fear of not being able to and enter into the dream space, days like today, the answer is so clear and obvious that it doesn't have words.
Asimov's heaven sounds a little too much like Sartre's "Hell is other people," and I'm not quite willing to forsake the world entirely for the word, but days like today, I don't need much of anything else except for the story.
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