This is the new weekly installment:  Writing Wednesdays!  Why?  Because I am a sucker for alteration?  No.  Because I can feel myself filling up, flooding with concepts, inspirations, and ruminations on this craft of mine that I still know nothing about.  Because I write to learn, mostly about myself, and I need to reflect and look forward, figure it all out.  I just quit my job to be a full time writer.  Again.  For the second time in a year.  I keep straying and keep coming back.

I love writing!  I’m going to stand up at a table in a fancy restaurant, which I can no longer afford to eat at, and shout:  I love writing!  In the past week I have watched another Stephen King interview where he said again, again and again, that he loves what he does.  He’s the luckiest man in the world to get to do what he does.  And that inspired me.  I don’t want to do anything else!  And I read a speech by Neil Gaiman where he talks about how he didn’t become a writer to change peoples lives but to feed his family.  That validated me.

So, for the millionth time, I google “How to Make Money as a Writer.”  I google that question and begin reading articles.  I need to find a way to do this and get paid because I don’t want to do anything else.  And, I need money.  This is it.  This is what I am going to do.  No unnecessary distractions!  (I’ve been here before.  I keep straying and coming back.)

I read about monetizing blogs, about getting published, getting agents, self publishing. but I kept getting distracted.  I get distracted by the ghoul in the corner.  I get distracted by wondering if the elderly draw ghosts.  What if ghosts were fueled by stories of the living?  Those “what if” questions.  Everything I need to know I learned from Stephen King.  I wonder what would happen if a girl like Carrie used her powers for good?  If stray cats didn’t exists but were only spirit messengers of magic to people who spied them?

I think I need a rethinking of priorities.  Several times, after slipping and getting pulled back into a regular looking life and job, I have reset the priority of writing first (after caretaking of course.)  I have come back to it.  It is my job, paying or no.  But I know am seeing that I need to prioritize my writing also.  Prioritizing what might someday make me money isn’t evil.  It will just mean I get to do this forever.  If it is that path, then I have to think about what comes first and most important.  If I choose to chase dragons and secret owls and write just to escape into worlds I myself create, well, then, that might be a different set of priorities.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But maybe I’ll follow this stray cat down and alley, the whole time writing plot notes and snippets of lines that come to my mind.  Seeking adventure as fodder for what I’ll put in between pages.  Search for meaning to out between the lines.

Yea, I guess I’ll keep you updated.