Somewhere* recently I read a quote from a writer saying something like "to be a writer, you have to give up a lot of life and personal time" - the writer made it sound harder than that though.
Sometimes I think this is self evident, and other times I think - but if only I could win lotto, I could give up my day job (which I am due back at in about five weeks) and have time. And then other times I think - if I'd spent my two days a week for the last year working on writing to get published, instead of on my masters project... well, I might have actually made some money and got some clips.
But then again I have loved working on my masters project, even though the essay has been driving me up the wall (I think I have it nailed now - though have I said that before? - I'll be getting back to it shortly), and I have learned a lot about the writing process I think.
And *maybe* one day I can turn the fiction into a novel. But to do that, y'see, I will have to give up an enormous amount of that personal time the writer was talking about. And in a few months we're going to be starting to try for another baby (probably), and once my masters project is done, we will have at least one day weekends as a family for the first time in years (unless you count the first few weeks after Mikaela's birth, and I don't), for about eight months - until I start studying again, but that will be for my last unit in the course. And and and... well, I'm not sure how or when I am going to motivate myself to sit down and do it.
But even if I don't, I am hoping to get some parts of it published as is (as are), and either way, I learned heaps along the way. In another quote (which I'm sure came from Dawn) a writer said something about writing being a craft you have to learn, just like any other craft. So I'm learning, and it's good.
__________
* I think this might have been in Dawn's writer quotes, but all my refreshing hasn't brought it back again.
Updated to add: And then I refreshed once more and there it was:
Sometimes I think this is self evident, and other times I think - but if only I could win lotto, I could give up my day job (which I am due back at in about five weeks) and have time. And then other times I think - if I'd spent my two days a week for the last year working on writing to get published, instead of on my masters project... well, I might have actually made some money and got some clips.
But then again I have loved working on my masters project, even though the essay has been driving me up the wall (I think I have it nailed now - though have I said that before? - I'll be getting back to it shortly), and I have learned a lot about the writing process I think.
And *maybe* one day I can turn the fiction into a novel. But to do that, y'see, I will have to give up an enormous amount of that personal time the writer was talking about. And in a few months we're going to be starting to try for another baby (probably), and once my masters project is done, we will have at least one day weekends as a family for the first time in years (unless you count the first few weeks after Mikaela's birth, and I don't), for about eight months - until I start studying again, but that will be for my last unit in the course. And and and... well, I'm not sure how or when I am going to motivate myself to sit down and do it.
But even if I don't, I am hoping to get some parts of it published as is (as are), and either way, I learned heaps along the way. In another quote (which I'm sure came from Dawn) a writer said something about writing being a craft you have to learn, just like any other craft. So I'm learning, and it's good.
__________
* I think this might have been in Dawn's writer quotes, but all my refreshing hasn't brought it back again.
Updated to add: And then I refreshed once more and there it was:
