More or Less a Writer

I’m not sure if I feel more like a writer when I’m chastising myself for not getting any writing done in a day, or when I when I do get words down.

I have been writing for long enough that doing so is a sort of second nature. When I am writing, it is simply what I do.

Now there are times when the words are flowing, and the story is sizzling, and the whole experience is like chocolate covered, roller-coaster, orgasm. Those times I know I’m a writer.

But it’s is not always those times. Sometimes it’s just easing the words onto the page like spreading peanut butter on a cracker – do it just right and you have a tasty snack. Do it wrong and you have crumbs everywhere and sticky fingers.

But when I am not writing… well then I feel it acutely. Even when the idea’s are not flowing and if I sat down it would be nothing but me and the mocking cursor – I still miss it. It is said it is the absence of a thing that truly makes you appreciate it. Is that yearning that truly defines the breed?

Today, I wrote more in the fourth Alvey novel, ‘Corrupted Souls’. I hit my minimum thousand words per day quota but I haven’t for a number of days previous. (yes – because of water stress mostly – and no it isn’t fixed yet). But was I more the writer yesterday, saddened by my lack of progress — or am I more the writer today because of those words.

Perhaps it is the bitter sweet combination of the two that marks the calling. One way or the other, I know myself. I know I am a writer.