Why Don't We Write?

Life is a lot of work.

Whether we write or not, everyone's life is a lot of work. Sometimes the work is breathing, something a lot of us take for granted. Sometimes life is about relationships and other people's emergencies.

Everyone who has been around even a little bit, knows that we all get twenty-four hours a day or there abouts for you science buffs. How we choose to spend them is how we are defined by ourselves and others. The outward appearance of the time we have spent pretty well tells the story. My pretty toenails tell that I like pretty toenails and I spent the time to get them that way. Doesn't matter who actually did the work. The time was spent.

My healthy skin tone means I spent some time achieving it. Whether by good food, good friends, or a healthy respect for the sun, I still spent some time on it. Didn't think about it, but the time was spent. We spend a lot of time without thinking about it. Wasted time we usually think about. It doesn't matter how it was wasted either, whether we liked the way is was wasted (swimming) or abhor it (fixing a clogged toilet and still having to call a plumber).

The thing about writing and other related activities is that it takes some thought to do it. Much of our other time that disappears like sands in an hourglass is gone due to habit mindlessness. The struggle to find time for activities that takes thought to do is harder to do than to do what we do automatically.

Can we develop the ability to write mindlessly? No. Plots and character development don't happen that way. Computer games, Facebook, television, and shopping do.

Add a little bit of lonely in. Can we spend the time alone it takes to write?
Will we?
Should we?
Abandon our loved ones for the mind candy of people who don't exist yet? How do you spell guilt?

These factors and hundreds more all pull at us, fracturing our ability to stick with it, rear-end in chair, fingers on keyboard. It is a miracle any writing is ever done. Although life is a lot of work, miracles happen every day.  Sort out a little time, make an appointment with yourself, put your mind to it, sit your seattie in your chair, and put your fingers on your keyboard, and.....write!