Writing, Chocolate, and Hobbies

Today's recycling day, so in honor of Henrico Waste Management emptying my bins of recyclables, here's a recycled blog post. The toddler mentioned is now 6 1/2.

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HANDS DIRTY, HANDS DIRTY

My two-year-old loves to get into everything. And she does get into everything. A carton of eggs. The litter box. The trashcan. My china hutch. Her brother’s backpack. The new box of, umm, let's call "girl stuff" that I accidentally left sitting on the kitchen table.

Today it was the bag of melting chocolates I had purchased to make Scooby Doo suckers.

Like normal, Rhyinn came running to me, holding her hands up and saying "hands dirty." If she doesn’t want to get her hands dirty, then why does she smear her pudding all over the kitchen table or take off her diaper and mess in her poop? I just don’t understand her toddler thinking process.

Uggh. Children.

Must be the paternal DNA taking over.

(Please ignore any pictures my mother sends of me making mud pies. The faded photo has been digitally altered.)

Rhyinn’s action makes me wonder something. Give me a second to get to it.

I've often heard unpubbie writers say they would write even if they knew they would never get published. They would write for the fun of it. Quite admirable, don’t you think?

When I hear that, I think, "So writing is their hobby." A hobby. Isn’t that a reasonable assessment?

Scrapbooking for me is something I do for the fun of it. Creating something out of funky triangular-cut paper, adorable stickers, and silly photos of my kids with snakes wrapped around their shoulders provides me a momentary amusement. A sedative. A time for me to relish the memory of that particular minute when all the stresses of life were an eternity away. I enjoy scrapbooking enough to do it even if I knew I'd never reap monetary benefits.

And so you don’t think I’m an amazingly organized person, I have at least two years’ worth of pictures I haven’t scrapbooked. I won’t even mention I don’t have a single picture of my younger sister’s New Year’s Day wedding.

Scrapbooking is my hobby. I really wish cleaning house were too.

Writing is NOT a hobby for me. Yes, it is a sedative at times, but I don't write for my own personal amusement or to distract myself from life's chaos. It’s not an escape. I don't write to live out my fantasies in a book because I'm too afraid to take a real-life risk.

I write because I have a story to tell. I can’t NOT tell it.

And because I want to tell that story well, I work at writing. I refuse to settle for "good enough to make me feel like I’m a real writer."

The other day one of my writer friends was struggling with her level of writing and another writer’s condemnation of her quality standard. She wrote this in response:
"To me, no matter how talented you are, you still have to work hard. Does Tiger Woods, the God of golf, just screw around ALL year long, show up at some golf tournaments and win? Do the Olympian swimmers sleep all year long and then win their gold medals? No. I grant that these people are talented. But without their sweat and blood, they wouldn't have been able to achieve the pinnacle of their careers."

Writing for your own personal pleasure is fine. It’s honorable. In fact, I think writing is a wonderful way to deal with personal frustrations, struggles, temptations, and failures. Journaling is the cheapest form of counseling. I should journal—umm, blog—more.

Not everyone who wants to be a writer will succeed as a writer. (I’ll leave the discussion of success for another time.) Of all those who consider themselves writers, only a portion will achieve published success. I don’t say that to be a downer but as a realist.

For some writers, writing will merely be a hobby—something to play with for a time. They will never let their hands stay dirty because they have other things to do. And there is nothing wrong with that decision. I have lots of things I like to dabble in for pleasure—things that are fun to do—but I will never get serious about them because I don’t have a passion for them. Sewing. Crafting. Floral design. Keeping my house clean.

Another group of writers will see their writing as something more than a hobby, but because they aren’t willing to dedicate themselves to learning the craft of writing, they will live frustrated with constant rejections.

If I knew I would never be published in fiction or non-fiction, then I wouldn’t strive to be the best writer I could be. I would re-examine my heart to see if my passion for writing is misplaced passion. Is there something I’m better at, something that I have a greater chance of succeeding in? Fortunately, though, my future is unknown. So I will strive. I will educate my mind. I will relish the editing stage as much as the drafting stage. I will push myself to learn.

What about you?

No matter which path to publication you take (print or e-pub), don’t be afraid to sink your hands into the muddy soil of creativity and learn to be the best writer you can. Don’t just assume you know how to write because you’ve been reading since you were two. Master the art of punctuation. Become a virtuoso in the sonata of concrete word choices, literary imagery, and paragraphing. Deepen your knowledge of what makes compelling writing.

By golly, get your hands dirty. It’s a whole lotta fun.

Just ask my daughter. And my son. And my other daughter. And my other son.

Okay, and me, too.