Just a thought...

It's funny.

I've been reading and reading and reading about writing, doing very little writing in comparison for years, thinking that I'm not really a writer because of how little writing I produce. I'm now in a creative writing class and though I think I should up my journaling a bit, I find that I've been living the life of a writer, after all.

How do I figure? Well, according to everyone who knows anything about writing I've come across in the last year, writers do a lot more reading than writing. That's how they learn, you see. Reading novels when you want to write them is the only way to be a good novel writer, and the same goes for all other types of writing. Well, I don't think I have to tell you that I read plenty of novels.

On top of the novels, I also read a lot about writing itself. Last summer I started a daily routine of reading blogs about writing, by writers and other people involved in the writing industry, like agents, etc. I learned a lot about the publishing world through these blogs and how those big shot authors I'm in awe of do what they do... it's nothing like the image I had in my head of someone sitting infront of a typewriter just typing away non-stop-- no. In fact, no two writers I've listened to have the same writing routine. They all write daily, which is something I need to bone up on, but the way they create their prose is never the same.

One writer I particularly idolize is a woman who wrote amazing historical novels while keeping her family as her #1 priority and had never had any training as a writer. In fact, she's a scientist... a zoologist, if I'm not mistaken. But she wrote these amazing books, each a bulky one with rich characters you can't bear to say goodbye to when you reach the last page, all while driving her kids to school, cooking dinner and having family outings. How did she do it? She would always be thinking about her books throughout the day. When her family is tucked in and off to sleep, she goes to her office where she writes at least 2000 words before turning in herself.

Others treat it like a 9-5 job, waking up, having their coffee, going down to their home office and sitting in front of the computer and forcing themselves to write until 5... even if they only produce one paragraph in those 8 hours, they feel like they've accomplished something. Others have other "real" jobs, so they wake up at an insanely early hour and do their writing then.

For me, everyday is different. I don't have a routine. I guess my only routine is that I'm always thinking stories in my head. Putting them on paper is another matter entirely, but I at least feel like I think like a writer by observing my surroundings sometimes building stories out of those, or simply daydreaming and building a story out of a daydream.

So, there you have it... just a thought.