Greetings, lovely readers! It’s another month and I figured I would talk about me again.

It’s the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo! Of course, I take part in this. I have a couple of goals I will try to stick to this month. Overall, I want to Write 200k. For me, who tends to be wordier than is actually good for a story, that amount of words isn’t too difficult. Second, I want to Write 6.6k words a day. That’s how much it would take to reach 200k with the same amount of words a day. I’m working on my consistency!

Those are the number goals. I am also going to try to keep all of the words on the same story. Most of them. If less than 75% isn’t in the story I picked out, then I will consider myself a failure for the month. It’s easy for me to run around and Write words anywhere else than where I need them to be.

Sorry for anyone who would have preferred a poem today!

I have always Written for me.

I think it is easy to say that I think most people who Write at least start like that. They Write because they can’t stop themselves. At least, I do. I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t Writing. Well, reading or playing with the dog or playing video games. It isn’t like I don’t have other things I want to do. But I need to Write, even when I don’t want to. It’s a weird feeling. This incessant desire to do something you don’t always feel up to doing.

It would be easy to do that forever, but there is the unfortunate need to also work for a living. Which cuts into valuable Writing time, as far as I’m concerned. Wouldn’t it be great if I could combine those two tasks into one? I had a dream about that when I was younger, before people convinced me I couldn’t making a living like that. I certainly wish no one had convinced me of that then, because I would have tried harder before instead of thinking Writing could take a back seat in my life.

Yet the important fact of Writing for an income is that you are no longer Writing for yourself. You are now Writing for others.

It is not necessarily a problem, except that I have always had difficulty determining what other people actually are like. I can understand people theoretically, which is why I can write about people, but real people? Like you? Definitely different than anything I could possibly dream up. You are different than anything I could Write, even if sometimes something I Write might feel familiar. Strike a chord (whether major or minor, depends on the feelings you derive from it).

This is how people get published. This is how people make a living with their Writing. They have successfully Written something that fill in a gap for other people. Fill a gap that other people are willing to pay to fill.

Really, if I had to blame anything, it’s the need of money to pay the bills I incur by simply living. Whoops. When I was younger, thinking about charging for my Writing disgusted me. I would have Written for nothing other than just to Write.

And I still would, I suppose. Even if my future endeavours in Writing never actually support me financially. I have to Write. I have too much in my head and none of it takes place in reality.

I also do not understand trends. Not that it matters. I couldn’t write for them anyway. That isn’t where my ideas come from. I have had some of these ideas for too long and I look for the time when I can get to them all. I will just have to hope that as time goes on, my brand of Writing will fill in gaps for enough people to eventually make it my job. That the ideas which plague me, willingly, will be the ideas other people will be happy to have plague them as well.

Until then, I hone my craft here. Hopefully you all will enjoy this ride with me!