I'm watching this movie right now with my wife and was thinking how (inadvertently?) they share a lot about the writing process (especially in regard to people who write for money). Often people think writing is easy. However, this isn't true. It's a craft.
For me writing has always been a hobby that if I had to make money doing it I would no longer enjoy it (at least not in the same way that I have always loved to write).
The problem with writing for money is it's a real discipline. It's a real balance and it takes a kind of maturity to hold everything in balance as you move forward.
For example, when I write it's like a fog (or something else) comes over me and it's sort of like an obsession for days or weeks or even months until I can complete (somewhat) what I'm writing about. However, I usually refuse to write endings (just so I leave it open in my mind to write more about whatever it is).
However, if you are writing for money almost everything I'm talking about here is a luxury that most paid writers no longer have. So, then you are left with the discipline of the paid writer and of to some degree forcing out whatever you are going to write about.
So, being a professional paid writer is a lot like getting married to whatever you are writing about. And the marriage lasts at least as long as you are writing and editing the book.
However, because I'm not trying to get paid for writing, my writing isn't like this. Instead what I write is often like one of my children and over time the writing project children mature and take on lives and meanings of their own.
Why?
Because when you write something it's one day or year and then when you or someone else reads it, often it's another year (any year) one year, 20 years, 50 years from when you wrote it. So, by then you are no longer the person who wrote that book or short story or article and it's often like reading something that someone else wrote and not you.
Writing is like having a love affair with an idea or set of ideas. Until you explore these ideas more fully (if you have the time available to do this) you just keep writing until you finish exploring those ideas for now. It's like a college term paper project you either want to do for yourself and posterity or you're getting paid for it so more likely you have to force it out so you can get paid within some time limit that is set for you by a publisher or by yourself if you are self publishing.
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