This Writing Thing, Part 4: The Jones

After my first creative writing effort, I found I couldn't stop. Two weeks after NaNoWriMo 2001, I knew what I wanted to write about in 2002. In fact there were a bunch of books I wanted to write.

But to wait a whole year to write again? What a horrible thought it was. Was my writing to become like my painting, done only in spurts, rarely finishing a work, without purpose? I still had the idea that I needed a reason to write -- or was it an excuse?

Alex created the Piker Press, and since then, I have never lacked a reason, or an excuse to write.

Over these nine years, however, I've discovered a new and delightful thing: I no longer need the reason to write, or the excuse. Like the silly series of photographs I've become enamored of ("Things On The Back of Trucks"), writing is just something I want to do, that I can do, and that I hunger to do just about every day.

There's this buzz in what feels like it ought to be my medulla oblongata, and a billowing through the rest of my brain. Jitters creep into my shoulders and an itch runs down my arms, and my fingers crave the touch and rhythm of typing, while my ears savor the soft clicking sound of the keys when I give in to this urge and let pour out strange words and new sentences.

Yes, I do this writing thing because I don't want to do without it for the rest of my life.