Is writing your life?

Nope!

It's the thing I love most and the one constant in my life, so I feel like I owe it something along the lines of, "You've been there for me, now let me return the favour by being as good a writer as I can be."

Writing is a passion of mine, one aspect of my multi-faceted life, not my entire life.

scarletpeaches said:

It's the thing I love most and the one constant in my life, so I feel like I owe it something along the lines of, "You've been there for me, now let me return the favour by being as good a writer as I can be."

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better myself...so I'll just quote you.

No.

I wouldn't say it's my life, but I do love doing it. I find that if I don't write consistently, then it's easy to get out of the habit. When I write every day, even a little, I tend to be more open to picking up ideas each day. A normal conversation will start me wondering if I can use it somewhere in my story.

Well, one of, sure. But that isn't saying much. I'm not big on emoting or obsessing so it would be more accurate to say it's something I do a lot. But I guess on the list of things important to me it would be in 4th, maybe 5th place.

These days, it feels like it!

It's a funny question. My first answer would be an emphatic YES. But I have a family...and a whole life outside writing. But it is definitely my biggest passion. I get up at 4:30am every morning just to invest more time into my writing life in a way that doesn't adversely affect the rest of my life. 4:30-6:30 is my selfish time. If I don't have that pocket of heaven every day I am unbearable. Yes...writing is my life.

No. But until I figure out what it is I am passionate about, writing will have to do.

Outside of my husband, the one person I communicate most with is my mother, who is also my very good friend. This morning I got an email from her saying, "What happened? We don't communicate any more. I haven't heard from you..."

I had to write her back and apologize because I've been up to my eyeballs in my WIP for the past 2 weeks. And I haven't been paying attention to ANYBODY.

Does that answer the question?

To a very great extent, writing has given me the life I have. It has paid for my home, my car, my food and clothing, and virtually everything else around me. It has taken me to places I would not otherwise have visited, and introduced me to people I would not otherwise have met.

It has given me a job I wouldn't trade for any other, and allowed me to work with joy. It has allowed me to use my imagination, my creativity, and both the best and worst parts of myself.

For all those reasons, writing is my life. And for all those reasons, my life contains passions other than writing.

(Hey, I write novels; there's no such thing as a short and simple answer!)

Yes.

I mean, what else is supposed to be my life, high school?

Short Answer: It's the largest part of my life.

Long Answer: I'd rather dedicate my life to helping my fellow man. You know: stopping global hunger, educating children in third world countries, and curing AIDS. Unfortunately, I don't think I could do that without having some kind of creative outlet. At this point, I'm hoping that I'll be able to support myself comfortably with my writing, and find a job in environmental conservation as a hobby.

However, I am very passionate about writing. It's the only thing that consumes me totally for hours on end. I just think that there are more important battles to be won outside of the world of publishing.

I guess I'd say yes. With most things in life, when it gets difficult to the point of becoming work -- and if I'm not obligated to do it -- then I stop with no qualms. And yet, even with the hardest parts of it, I keep on writing.

I like telling stories and figuring things out and learning and making sentences that make people react (something I'm always playing with when I speak).

I'm not gonna gush about writing. It's not My Love My Everything My Belief Of Unique (whatever the hell THAT means). It's what I do, and I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I completely stopped.

But then, I also think it's important that occasionally, I wander off and listen to some good music, or watch TV, or just spend some happy time with my wife. I'm a mindless workaholic (I don't have middle gears in anything, including work), which means that it seems unthinkable for me to just go to bed and not write (JUST go to bed and be with my wife!? And not work!? Tomorrow...tonight I HAVE to work, honey). This means i try to do that when I can.

Yeah, it's my life. Such as it is.

Barbarique said:

Writing is something I do. It's not who I am.

Click to expand...

That's a good way of putting it, although I would add that I wouldn't necessarily be who I am now, without writing being what I have always done.

When I was 18 it was my life. I thought I was going to be the world's best writer. Now? Now I just don't know. When I'm on a roll and it's all going good, there's nothing else I'd rather do. But when I'm stuck for a word or just can't get past a certain point, I'd like to give it up.

Writing is part of my unlife...the perfect life that lies somewhere between what happens and what perfection would be. In my unlife I'm a successful author living in a cabin in the mountains and sipping tea on the veranda in the mornings while I ponder the days work. In real life I'm pounding out words in a ground level apartment in Ohio. Writing will get me there.

Right now, yes. Yes it is. I am an obsessive, anxious person, and I can do no less than make it my life until some other obsession rips me away from it. It could be a fear of brain tumors, or joining another band, or *cringe* getting a haircut and a real job.

Yes. Totally. I spend upwards of 12 hours a day either writing, researching, or thinking about my stories. I have no outside life and I don't want one.

I always say I'll quit writing the day I'm actually living my dreams. If you read my books, you'd see why I know I will spend the rest of my life writing obsessively in order to avoid 'reality'. Sorry, but my fantasy world beats your reality any day, and so long as I have the choice as to which I can spend my time in, it's going to be Eterna, not Earth.

Yes. I feel like I would have no identity without my writing. (And that is not healthy, I realize.)

What an interesting thread. And I like the way you posed the question, as it can be taken a number of ways; and the way we're taking it is indicative of our feelings too.

I think that writing cannot be your whole life, because then you wouldn't have anything to write about. Writing is about life, so we have to HAVE life to mine. Was it Wordsworth who said poetry was 'emotion recollected in tranquility'? Whoever it was, the point is that you have to have the emotion in the first place in order to recollect it in tranquility.

Writing's not my whole life, but it's a fundamental part of it. My writing informs my life (people I've met, places I go, how I view things), and my life informs my writing.

Writing enriches my life immeasurably.

I don't think I would say it's my life. However, I do wonder what on earth I'd do with all the people in my head who tell me their stories if I couldn't write.