To write means to leave everything behind. People, places, things. Most definitely things. Writing is a depressing kind of happy.
It's when you're driving and daydreaming about all the stuff you wish you had and you could really see yourself in a Jag, but you know there's no way in hell that's going to happen. Unless you're the 1% of writers who actually make that kind of money. So you start wondering if maybe the writing life was the wrong path. That's the depressing part.
But then you get home, it's quiet and the dog is snuggled in your lap, you're sipping on green tea and writing profusely and you realize there's nothing else you'd rather do. There's nowhere else you'd rather be. That's the happy part, and it far outweighs the sadness.
In Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft Natalie Goldberg writes,
It's when you're driving and daydreaming about all the stuff you wish you had and you could really see yourself in a Jag, but you know there's no way in hell that's going to happen. Unless you're the 1% of writers who actually make that kind of money. So you start wondering if maybe the writing life was the wrong path. That's the depressing part.
But then you get home, it's quiet and the dog is snuggled in your lap, you're sipping on green tea and writing profusely and you realize there's nothing else you'd rather do. There's nowhere else you'd rather be. That's the happy part, and it far outweighs the sadness.
In Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft Natalie Goldberg writes,
"Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. Bareboned, you are on the path with no markers, only the skulls of those who never made it back.
"Now that you have been warned, let me also say this: if you want to know what you're made of, if you want to stand on death's dark face and leave behind the weary yellow coat of yourself, then just now - I hear it - the heavy wooden doors of the cloister of no return are cracking open. Please enter."
"Now that you have been warned, let me also say this: if you want to know what you're made of, if you want to stand on death's dark face and leave behind the weary yellow coat of yourself, then just now - I hear it - the heavy wooden doors of the cloister of no return are cracking open. Please enter."
The path with no markers, nothing is guaranteed. Not fame, not money, not love, not the house you always dreamed of. Maybe not even joy, but always happiness, even if in the little moments that keep you writing for the rest of your life.
Are you leaving it all behind?
Are you leaving it all behind?
