In the last two years a personal crisis (which I described on my last blog post) brought a halt to writing my fiction. It took a year and a half before I could emotionally return to writing. During that time, I worried that I’d never return to writing. It scared me. I guess if I could give it up easily, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if I ever returned to writing. But it did. It was a relief when I successfully wrote another novel last November. So like many, I guess I can’t stop. I think I’ll always write.

One note of caution to some. It involves the business side of things. While many of us know the chance of hitting it big is an uphill battle, and we aren’t likely to get rich or anything, it is easy to not treat our work with the worth it deserves. That’s when we’ll get scammed, or sign a bad contract, because we’re more concerned with the dream than what is in our best interest business wise. Scammers pray on people with dreams. Especially frustrated ones. So while money may not be a lot of people’s reasons to write, you still have to deal with it effectively.

Thanks for this post, Mike.

I started writing seriously in 2000, and for the past 12 years, I’ve devoted enough hours to the task to qualify Writing as a second job. (per week, at least a half-time job…if not 3/4) For most of those years I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the comments from your writer friends, and the Decomposers here.

Now, having at least achieved a published book, I’m soul-searching, reconsidering my motives…not for what was done in the past, but in how to move forward from here.

I think I’m supposed to be miserable during this hiatus, but I’m not. Not writing seems eerily natural. And it’s helped me reconnect with aspects of myself that were true before The Dream took hold. I take long walks…not to plot storylines, but to breathe and to absorb the sights and sounds of the lakeshore. I read non-fiction…not as research for a story, but to improve my mind and challenge my thinking. I exercise more, rather than sitting for untold hours. I feel less pressure to achieve, and more freedom to live. I connect with others out of pure relationship…not out of (subliminal) hopes that it may advance my writing in some way, or from some vague sense of distressing obligation that “everyone else is networking”…

I’ve been a happier person.

My time of reflection isn’t over, and I can’t say right now what I will ultimately choose… But I can say that taking time out to honestly consider my reasons for writing has led to a greater measure of peace.