#Inkripples is a themed meme hosted by Mary Waibel, Katie L. Carroll, and Kai Strand posting on the first Monday of every month. To participate compose your own post regarding the theme of the month, and link back to the three host blogs. Feel free to post whenever you want during the month, but be sure to include #inkripples when you promote so readers can find you. The idea is that we toss a word or idea into the inkwell and each post is a new ripple. There is no wrong interpretation. Themes and images and more information can be found here.

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Writing has been my hobby ever since I could remember. Even before I could actually write, I made up stories and entertained other children with them. Later, I wrote them by hand in notebooks, later still I used an old typewriter with a defective letter p. Now I tap away at my laptop daily. But writing is still just a hobby.

I’d love to make writing my career, but sadly, I have to pay the bills every month. My consolation is that my day job has to do with books too. I translate and sometimes edit novels, so I get my fill of mysterious, romantic, intriguing stories on a daily basis. So far, I’ve been able to keep a perfect symbiosis between my job and my hobby.

I’m deeply convinced that having a day job which gets me away from my manuscripts but still deals with books has helped me largely to avoid any monumental cases of writer’s block. Translating other people’s work is inspiring and rewarding and it keeps me ‘fit’ for when I tackle my own writing.

It’s because of that I’m not sure I’d choose to dedicate all my time solely to writing even if I had the chance. I think I need some time away from it. I would feel too pressured to constantly write and write well if it were my job. So I believe my situation is pretty much ideal.

How about you? Do you find you’re still inspired if you write for six or more hours a day? Or do you need to get away from it to rest your mind (and fingers) for a while?