Over at Mary McCallum's blog she has a link to this which I agree is terrific advice for writers, although writing isn't quite like other work because you don't necessarily get paid for the time you spend. When I write I don't intend to come up with something to be rejected. I do my best to create something that I hope a publisher will feel compelled to accept. From all those hours/days weeks/months I hope payment will come. And even after a string of no's and unrewarded time I must knuckle down and spend more time beavering away at new material that also may be unrewarded. Sometimes this is depressing and its hard to push myself on to more creating. Other times I just feel downright lazy because it is, as Ms Frame so rightly said, work. Right now I am being BAD and avoiding work I MUST do. Blech. Don’t want to do stinky old work, just want love and adoration and book sales and new contracts. Pooh – work must come first to get all of those.
Writing for me is not a hobby although sometimes it has the qualities of a hobby (something done for love/enjoyment but not money). There are times when i call it a career because I work at it to improve my skills and sometimes the writing community or the world at large responds with positive noises and/or a commercial transaction takes place. But all the time, as Kate Grenville said in her submission that I linked to yesterday, it is a vocation; something I can and must do because of an undeniable desire and a belief that this is where my skills lie. And of course now I have to stop blogging, stop avoiding the work I should be doing, and go do it with the undying hope of the writer that at some point someone might say yes and I will get published and paid.
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