by L. A. Brown

Created on: October 05, 2010   Last Updated: October 20, 2010

I don't know why it suddenly occured to me but I realized that I haven't written since.....I don't know when. I'm not sure what happened but it's most likely that I simply got preoccupied in the daily happenings of pure survival. However, the writer in me never seems to die. It woke up suddenly like a coma patient and is raring to go. Hmmm, ok that might not be the best analogy (are coma patients really raring to go after waking up?) But anyway, that is what happened tonight. So here I am. Hiatus over.

It saddens me sometimes how my dreams of being a professional writer never materialized. As a child I was certain that was what I was going to be and used to spend hours writing everything from songs and poetry to short stories and even a novel.....yes a novel that was quite good and I don't even know what happened to it now. Very depressing. But life goes on and I will persevere as we all do when regrets rise from the surface and make us acknowledge them again.

Why did I become (or want to) become a writer? Well, quite frankly, I was an awkward child who felt uncomfortable in practically every social environment you could imagine. Writing was a wonderful outlet because I could be myself or I could be someone completely different and I could manipulate the characters in my stories to react in whichever way I desired. Now that's power! 

The problem with writing is that financial security is practically non-existent....unless you completely rock and sell millions and millions of copies. So once I had my son, it went on the back burner and I got a....gasp.....job. I focused so much of my time and energy on just trying to pay the bills that writing....once considered a relaxing, leisure activity was sadly put aside. Could I have become successful? I'm not sure. Maybe it's not too late to find out.

Besides financial issues, there's also procrastinating that can leer its ugly head at you. A successful writer needs to devote just as much time if not more (most likely more) than a full time, daily job.....but in the comfort of their home and without a boss directing them. So when it got to the point of trying to earn money with my stories and break free from considering it simply a hobby, committing my time to writing became a challenge.

There's not much I can do about the financial aspect; however, there are ways to beat the procrastinator in me and I’m going to give it a try. First, I need a plan and a schedule for myself.  Since I’m not working right now….ooh there’s a story for you…..my days are more open. So instead of spending countless hours on You Tube, I’m going to commit every free morning to writing. Now that my schedule is set, I need a plan. What am I going to write about next? Hmm….well besides the story about how I lost my job (you’re gonna love that), I think my first real story will be my disappointment in some of my earlier articles that I’ve posted since joining Helium and how I wish, wish, wish they could just be removed.

I hope you don’t mind my little griping but when the writing bug hit I had to react and this was all I had at the moment.  Wish me luck and good luck to you as well in all your writing ventures. There’s a reason we’re here doing this and I believe it’s because we have a story worth telling.

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