Writing is a strange avocation. It can produce a high no drug can match when you’ve written something that parallels exactly what you saw in your head. But it can also produce migraine headaches when you’re into re-write #32 and the damn story is still crap you wouldn’t feed to a starving librarian.

When the perfect word slides from the crevasses of your brain as you type, your emotions run the gamut from sublime joy to a robust “Fuck yeah!” But then there are the days when you’ve been sitting in front of the laptop for two hours with the keys not feeling the oils from your fingers because you know there’s a word for what you want to say but, damn it, you just can’t find it anywhere in the pickled red beet you call a mind.

Next is the monumental step of sending your new-born creation out into the world. You dress them up in finery and teach them how to behave, hoping they will make a good first impression. No matter how much you prepare though you never know what the reception is going to be. You could be told “you’re a helluva writer”. Of course you could also be told “you’re a helluva nice guy but you should use your computer to run a fake farm, not so much putting words into sentences and giving them titles.”

Writing for some people is a job, for others a hobby. For some of us it just is. We can’t live with it, we can’t live without it. It’s the love of our lives and the bitch that broke our heart. Its peanut butter and chocolate separate and mixed together, a fire burning out of control, an itch that not even medicated cream can scratch, the greatest meal we’ve ever eaten and an unsalted saltine with a cup of warm water.

Writing can be anything you want it to be. But don’t ask it to loan you 20 bucks ‘til payday because you’ll be shit outta luck.