A Writer's Life

Writing is a lonely life – or so it has been said  -- and by many of the greats who know more about writing than the rest of us could ever possibly know.

Do I agree with this concept?  Probably not. The statement sounds so bleak, and who in his or her right mind deliberately sets him or herself up to be lonely? Not me, but I do enjoy being by myself with a pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. I enjoy writing in my living room or in a park where trees and lawns surround me. I appreciate the time I get to be by myself to create whatever I want. So, with this in mind, maybe the correct word is solitary. Writing is a solitary life.

After all, unless we have a writing partner, we have to do our writing alone, and to do this, we have to have our isolated place – our alone place.  It is within this isolated place where our ideas emerge and where we form opinions; it is where we allow ideas and opinions to develop and where we logically think them through to fruition.

In our alone place, we create characters. Here we give them room to grow and develop. While we’re alone with them, in our special alone place, we get to know our characters – their backgrounds, their personalities, and their thoughts. In our alone place, we supply our characters with homes, families, friends, and lovers. We set them up to let them fall – and then we pick them up again.

So I guess it is fair to say a writing life can be lonely, but we can’t forget the advantages.  First of all, it can be a place of retreat for those times when real life becomes a bit too much to handle.  As writers, we travel out into the world and experience all life has to offer – the good and the bad. Then we retreat to the alone place where we create in order to understand.