What I Learned Talking To A Writer

For a few days last week I though about dropping my computer off the Freedom Bridge, a high bridge on the PA Turnpike near my house. I thought, “Look at all the books in the world, why does anybody need one from me?”

Bestselling authors walk through any airports everyday without being mobbed by fans. Writers neglect their friends and let dust bunnies gather, shut up in their offices with people from their own imaginations. Only a few earn a living selling writing. I know an author that rolls out of bed at five in the morning so she can write before work.

My daughter Margaret paints pictures and works retail to pay her rent. Her boyfriend Jesse has a passion to climb rocks, but he has to throw pizzas to afford more rock climbing equipment.

KK lives for Community Theater, writes amazing plays and ekes out a living doing other things. Sue lives to sing in a choir but has to put dinner on the table with her secretarial skills. Jen wrote insightful poems and never made a dime on one of them. But all of us would agree that our art gets us up in the morning.

I write because I love it. I’ve spent years honing the craft because I love it. Everything turns to stories in my head, and my kids say when I’m finally senile I will be asking for the book characters along with my own children.

What ever kind of art you make, writing or climbing rocks, cake decorating or singing, don’t stop. The world would fade to gray if all of us stopped making art and nobody at all would get up in the morning.