Writer envy

I spend almost no time at all on my writing.  I read about writing incessantly, I read in my genre voraciously, and visit my favorite author’s websites obsessively.  All time that should be spent – wait for it – WRITING!!!  I learned this week that Nora Roberts’ rule for writing is “butt in chair” (or something close to that).  It’s a great rule and one I’d like to say I follow.  The only problem I have with it is that when my butt is in my chair, I’m looking at a computer screen.  My computer happens to be connected to the internet, which is a good thing because otherwise you wouldn’t be reading my blog!  It can also add to the distractions that keep me from writing, which are infinite on the ‘net without even starting on those in my home life.  So, what’s a budding, non-published author to do?  Make Nora’s motto my own, “butt in chair, browser in your blog (or word processing software)!”  Thousands of  ideas are running around in my brain, and as they come up I tend to ignore them because I let the editor in my brain censor me or the real life crises that tend to make up my day take over.  There has to be a way to transcend this, because two writers I admire started their careers because:  a.) one was up in the night with nothing left in the house to read and started to write something she would want to read, and b.) one was stuck in a blizzard with no way out of her house, and small children to entertain.

It would be easy to say I have more challenges than most because my now 11-yr-old son Daniel was diagnosed with a fatal, neuro-degenerative disorder when he was 2 & 1/2 years old.  That pretty much blew my life to hell for the next decade.   He’s had more hospitalizations than I can count, and challenged me as a mother in ways I would never have thought I could survive.  As exhausting as it gets, all he has to do is smile and every effort I make seems pitifully small in comparison to what he lives with on a daily basis.

Yes, I envy published authors and escape into their books as often as I possibly can.  It’s easier to lose myself in their writing than it is in my own – so far.  As Daniel has shown me over and over again, each day is a new opportunity and you never know what life will offer you unless you choose to live it.